Python xml.dom
module handles XML data structure easily.
Suppose we have a XML structure file "tp.txt":
<ResultSet date="2013-02-26 07:43:10"> <Query>TTRE</Query> <Hits>1</Hits> <Result id="1"> <analysis_id>2a891a941fe3</analysis_id> <state>live</state> <last_modified>2011-08-26T07:00:00Z</last_modified> <upload_date></upload_date> <center_name>XTRCD</center_name> <study>phs000178</study> <aliquot_id>4a8c8a7df3a5</aliquot_id> <files> <file> <filename>test.txt</filename> <filesize>59264187</filesize> </file> </files>  </Result> </ResultSet>
Get all sub nodes names under node "Result":
from xml.dom import minidom rxml = minidom.parse('tp.txt') arr = rxml.getElementsByTagName('Result') print(len(arr)) print(arr[0].nodeName) print(arr[0].childNodes) x = arr[0].childNodes for i in x: print(i.nodeName)
1 Result analysis_id state last_modified upload_date center_name study aliquot_id files data_uri