如何使用lxml重置etree

Question

How do I "reset" an etree using LXML in Python 2.7?

I have one file that contains a list of files. For each of the files in this list I store the information in an element tree in LXML, then write the LXML to file. What I'd like to be able to do once I write to file is restore the etree to its initial state.

Conceptually this is where I'm at:

from lxml import etree

for file in list:
    quiz = etree.Element('quiz')
    open file and process contents:
        "add a bunch of stuff to etree"
        etree.SubElement(quiz,'stuff')
        "print etree to xml file"
        dataOut = etree.tostring(quiz, pretty_print = True)
        output_file.write(dataOut)
        "reset etree to blank file"

Answer 1

I don't see any issues with the following setup similar to the one you have:

from lxml import etree

for item in ["test1", "test2", "test3"]:
    quiz = etree.Element('quiz')

    etree.SubElement(quiz, 'stuff', attrib={"attr": item})
    print etree.tostring(quiz, pretty_print = True)
    print "---"

which prints:

<quiz>
  <stuff attr="test1"/>
</quiz>

---
<quiz>
  <stuff attr="test2"/>
</quiz>

---
<quiz>
  <stuff attr="test3"/>
</quiz>

---

I don't see quizzes stack which probably means the problem is somewhere else in your real code.