from xml.etree.ElementTree import Element

def dict_to_xml(tag, d):
'''
Turn a simple dict of key/value pairs into XML
'''
elem = Element(tag)
for key, val in d.items():
  child = Element(key)
  child.text = str(val)
  elem.append(child)
return elem

>>> s = { 'name': 'GOOG', 'shares': 100, 'price':490.1 }
>>> e = dict_to_xml('stock', s)
>>> e
<Element 'stock' at 0x1004b64c8>
>>>

>>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import tostring
>>> tostring(e)
b'<stock><price>490.1</price><shares>100</shares><name>GOOG</name></stock>'
>>>

>>> e.set('_id','1234')
>>> tostring(e)
b'<stock _id="1234"><price>490.1</price><shares>100</shares><name>GOOG</name>
</stock>'
>>>

def dict_to_xml_str(tag, d):
  '''
  Turn a simple dict of key/value pairs into XML
  '''
  parts = ['<{}>'.format(tag)]
  for key, val in d.items():
    parts.append('<{0}>{1}</{0}>'.format(key,val))
  parts.append('</{}>'.format(tag))
  return ''.join(parts)

>>> d = { 'name' : '<spam>' }

>>> # String creation
>>> dict_to_xml_str('item',d)
'<item><name><spam></name></item>'

>>> # Proper XML creation
>>> e = dict_to_xml('item',d)
>>> tostring(e)
b'<item><name><spam></name></item>'
>>>

>>> from xml.sax.saxutils import escape, unescape
>>> escape('<spam>')
'<spam>'
>>> unescape(_)
'<spam>'
>>>

>>> # Some queries that work
>>> doc.findtext('author')
'David Beazley'
>>> doc.find('content')
<Element 'content' at 0x100776ec0>
>>> # A query involving a namespace (doesn't work)
>>> doc.find('content/html')
>>> # Works if fully qualified
>>> doc.find('content/{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}html')
<Element '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}html' at 0x1007767e0>
>>> # Doesn't work
>>> doc.findtext('content/{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}html/head/title')
>>> # Fully qualified
>>> doc.findtext('content/{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}html/'
... '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}head/{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}title')
'Hello World'
>>>

class XMLNamespaces:
  def __init__(self, **kwargs):
    self.namespaces = {}
    for name, uri in kwargs.items():
      self.register(name, uri)
  def register(self, name, uri):
    self.namespaces[name] = '{'+uri+'}'
  def __call__(self, path):
    return path.format_map(self.namespaces)

>>> ns = XMLNamespaces(html='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml')
>>> doc.find(ns('content/{html}html'))
<Element '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}html' at 0x1007767e0>
>>> doc.findtext(ns('content/{html}html/{html}head/{html}title'))
'Hello World'
>>>

>>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import iterparse
>>> for evt, elem in iterparse('ns2.xml', ('end', 'start-ns', 'end-ns')):
... print(evt, elem)
...
end <Element 'author' at 0x10110de10>
start-ns ('', 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml')
end <Element '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}title' at 0x1011131b0>
end <Element '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}head' at 0x1011130a8>
end <Element '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}h1' at 0x101113310>
end <Element '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}body' at 0x101113260>
end <Element '{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}html' at 0x10110df70>
end-ns None
end <Element 'content' at 0x10110de68>
end <Element 'top' at 0x10110dd60>
>>> elem # This is the topmost element
<Element 'top' at 0x10110dd60>
>>>