How to access text in XML containing namespace using python ElementTree - python-3.x

Question

I have a simple XML with namespaces. I am unable to access the text inside the namespace. The XML looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- Created by IRIS Business Services Limited -->
<link:linkbase xmlns:xsi="http://www.ffff.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.uhtj.org/2006/ref http://www.frsfs.org/2006/ref-2006-02-27.xsd http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par ../core/in-ghi-rep-par.xsd http://www.rl.org/2003/linkbase http://www.rl.org/2003/rl-linkbase-2003-12-31.xsd" xmlns:in-ghi-rep-par="http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par" xmlns:link="http://www.rl.org/2003/linkbase" xmlns:ref="http://www.rl.org/2006/ref" xmlns:rli="http://www.rl.org/2003/instance" xmlns:xlink="http://www.ffff.org/1999/xlink">
<link:referenceLink xlink:type="extended" xlink:role="http://www.rl.org/2003/role/link">
<link:loc xlink:type="locator" xlink:href="../core/in-ghi-rep.xsd#in-ghi-rep_ReportingPeriodTable" xlink:label="in-ghi-rep_ReportingPeriodTable"/>
<link:reference xlink:type="resource" xlink:label="res_1" xlink:role="http://www.rl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef" id="res_1">
<in-ghi-rep-par:Circular>DBS.No.FBC.BC.34/13.12.001/99-2000 dt April 6, 2000</in-ghi-rep-par:Circular>
</link:reference>
</link:referenceLink>
</link:linkbase>
All I want to do is retrieve "DBS.No.FBC.BC.34/13.12.001/99-2000 dt April 6, 2000" which is the Circular value.
My current code looks like this. I have explored ElementTree but still not able to get the solution.
from lxml import etree
tree = etree.parse("s2.xml")
root = tree.getroot()
root2.nsmap
for Circular in root.findall('{http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par}'):
print (Circular.text)
I am new to parsing XML. Please help.

Answer 1

Your expression for findall is not correct. findall will search based on your expression and you currently telling it to only look in the node its in. In the root node there are no nodes with this namespace so it correctly returns an empty list. So your expression could work if you ran it in the parent node where the Circular tag is located. But other than the name space you need to pass either a wild card to get all tags of that name space, or if you are interested in the Circular tag then specify that.
print(root[0][1].findall('{http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par}*'))
print(root[0][1].findall('{http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par}Circular'))
But assuming you dont know where the tag might be in the xml then you can search from the root and use .// to tell your xpath spression to look for this in all the elements recursivly from this element. Again you need to give either a wild card for the tag name or the actual tag name.
print(root.findall('.//{http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par}*'))
print(root.findall('.//{http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par}Circular'))
For example:
print(root.findall('.//{http://www.ghi.org/in-ghi-rep-par}Circular')[0].text)
OUTPUT
DBS.No.FBC.BC.34/13.12.001/99-2000 dt April 6, 2000