python - ElementTree - findall to recursively select all child elements

Question

Python code:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
root = ET.parse("h.xml")
print root.findall('saybye')

h.xml code:

<hello>
  <saybye>
   <saybye>
   </saybye>
  </saybye>
  <saybye>
  </saybye>
</hello>

Code outputs,

[<Element 'saybye' at 0x7fdbcbbec690>, <Element 'saybye' at 0x7fdbcbbec790>]

saybye which is a child of another saybye is not selected here. So, how to instruct findall to recursively walk down the DOM tree and collect all three saybye elements?

Answer 1

From version 2.7 on, you can use xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
root = ET.parse("h.xml")
print root.iter('saybye')

See 19.7. xml.etree.ElementTree — The ElementTree XML API