Dive Into Python

10.8. Summary

Python comes with powerful libraries for parsing and manipulating XML documents. The minidom takes an XML file and parses it into Python objects, providing for random access to arbitrary elements. Furthermore, this chapter shows how Python can be used to create a "real" standalone command-line script, complete with command-line flags, command-line arguments, error handling, even the ability to take input from the piped result of a previous program.

Before moving on to the next chapter, you should be comfortable doing all of these things:

Chaining programs with standard input and output
Defining dynamic dispatchers with getattr.
Using command-line flags and validating them with getopt