10. January 2011

PyXML is dead project – warning: PyXML does not work with Python2.6

PyXML project has been dead for several years. Last version was released in 2004.

When you try to install PyXML with Python 2.6 you’ll get following error:

Failed to load application: invalid syntax (ParsedAbbreviatedRelativeLocationPath.py, line 31)

When you try to start PyXML with Python 2.5 you could see nice compiler warning:

python2.5 xml/xpath/ParsedAbbreviatedAbsoluteLocationPath.py

xml/xpath/ParsedAbbreviatedAbsoluteLocationPath.py:27:

Warning: ‘as’ will become a reserved keyword in Python 2.6

Problem is caused by following line:

as = ParsedAxisSpecifier.ParsedAxisSpecifier('descendant-or-self')

PyXML is dead project. It does not accept patches. Some Linux distros already excluded it from repositories and Windows version for new Python does not exist as well.

Try to avoid using PyXML and replace it e.g. by xml.dom.minidom or elemettree.