Scriptling Scriptling

scriptling.xml

The scriptling.xml library provides simple XML parsing and formatting using a dict-based representation (similar to Python’s xmltodict). Unlike Python’s xml.dom or xml.etree.ElementTree (which use tree objects), this operates on plain dicts and strings — loads/dumps, consistent with json, yaml, toml, and csv.

Available in all environments (including MCP — no filesystem access required).

Conventions

  • Element tags → dict keys
  • Text content → string value (or "#text" key when the element also has attributes/children)
  • Attributes → "@"-prefixed keys (e.g. "@id")
  • Repeated child elements → list values
  • Empty elements → empty string ""

Available Functions

Function Description
loads(content) Parse an XML string into a nested dict.
dumps(data, indent="") Format a dict into an XML string.

Functions

loads(content)

Parse an XML string into a nested dict using the dict-based representation.

Parameters: content (str): XML text to parse.

Returns: dict: nested dict representing the XML document.

import scriptling.xml as xml

# Simple elements
data = xml.loads("<root><name>Alice</name><age>30</age></root>")
# {"root": {"name": "Alice", "age": "30"}}

# Attributes
data = xml.loads('<user id="123"><name>Alice</name></user>')
# {"user": {"@id": "123", "name": "Alice"}}

# Text + attributes
data = xml.loads('<msg type="greeting">Hello</msg>')
# {"msg": {"@type": "greeting", "#text": "Hello"}}

# Repeated elements → list
data = xml.loads("<items><item>a</item><item>b</item></items>")
# {"items": {"item": ["a", "b"]}}

dumps(data, indent="")

Format a dict back into an XML string. The dict should have a single root key whose value is the root element’s content.

Parameters:

  • data (dict): Dict with a single root element key.
  • indent (str, keyword-only): Indentation string. Default: "" (compact).

Returns: str: XML-formatted text.

import scriptling.xml as xml

# Basic
text = xml.dumps({"root": {"name": "Alice", "age": "30"}})
# <root><name>Alice</name><age>30</age></root>

# With attributes
text = xml.dumps({"user": {"@id": "123", "name": "Alice"}})
# <user id="123"><name>Alice</name></user>

# Repeated elements
text = xml.dumps({"items": {"item": ["a", "b"]}})
# <items><item>a</item><item>b</item></items>

# Indented
text = xml.dumps({"root": {"child": "value"}}, indent="  ")
# <root>
#   <child>value</child>
# </root>

Reading and Writing Files

Pair with os for file I/O:

import scriptling.xml as xml
import os

data = xml.loads(os.read_file("config.xml"))
data["config"]["server"]["port"] = "9090"
os.write_file("config.xml", xml.dumps(data, indent="  "))

See Also