Unknown error when using lxml module - parsing XML

Question

am curently learning using Python 101 and in one of examples I'm getting an error and have no clue how to fix it - my code is 100% same as in the book (checked it 3 times already) and it still outputs this error. Here is the code:

from lxml import etree

def parseXML(xmlFile):
    """
    Parse the xml
    """
    with open(xmlFile) as fobj:
        xml = fobj.read()

    root = etree.fromstring(xml)

    for appt in root.getchildren():
        for elem in appt.getchildren():
            if not elem.text:
                text = 'None'
            else:
                text = elem.text
            print(elem.tag + ' => ' + text)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    parseXML('example.xml')

and here is xml file (it's the same as in the book):

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<zAppointments reminder-"15">
    <appointment>
        <begin>1181251600</begin>
        <uid>0400000008200E000</uid>
        <alarmTime>1181572063</alarmTime>
        <state></state>
        <location></location>
        <duration>1800</duration>
        <subject>Bring pizza home</subject>
    </appointment>
    <appointment>
        <begin>1234567890</begin>
        <duration>1800</duration>
        <subject>Check MS office webstie for updates</subject>
        <state>dismissed</state>
        <location></location>
        <uid>502fq14-12551ss-255sf2</uid>
     </appointment>
</zAppointments>

EDITED: Sry, got so excited about my first post that I actually forgot to put the error code.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/michal/Desktop/nauka programowania/python 101/parsing_with_lxml.py", line 21, in <module>
    parseXML('example.xml')
  File "/home/michal/Desktop/nauka programowania/python 101/parsing_with_lxml.py", line 10, in parseXML
    root = etree.fromstring(xml)
  File "src/lxml/lxml.etree.pyx", line 3213, in lxml.etree.fromstring (src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:77737)
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 1830, in lxml.etree._parseMemoryDocument (src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:116674)
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 1711, in lxml.etree._parseDoc (src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:115220)
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 1051, in lxml.etree._BaseParser._parseUnicodeDoc (src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:109345)
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 584, in lxml.etree._ParserContext._handleParseResultDoc (src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:103584)
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 694, in lxml.etree._handleParseResult (src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:105238)
  File "src/lxml/parser.pxi", line 624, in lxml.etree._raiseParseError (src/lxml/lxml.etree.c:104147)
lxml.etree.XMLSyntaxError: Specification mandate value for attribute reminder-, line 2, column 25

Thanks for help!!

Answer 1

The only error in the xml can be found here: <zAppointments reminder-"15"> , should be: <zAppointments reminder="15"> .

In the future useful tools for validating xml can be found online. Here for example: https://www.xmlvalidation.com/

Answer 2

Error may be in

<zAppointments reminder-"15">

For next validation try to use xmllint :

xmllint --valid --noout example.xml