Class ElementMaker
source code
object --+
         |
        ElementMaker
Element generator factory.
Unlike the ordinary Element factory, the E factory allows you to pass in
more than just a tag and some optional attributes; you can also pass in
text and other elements.  The text is added as either text or tail
attributes, and elements are inserted at the right spot.  Some small
examples:
>>> from lxml import etree as ET
>>> from lxml.builder import E
>>> ET.tostring(E("tag"))
'<tag/>'
>>> ET.tostring(E("tag", "text"))
'<tag>text</tag>'
>>> ET.tostring(E("tag", "text", key="value"))
'<tag key="value">text</tag>'
>>> ET.tostring(E("tag", E("subtag", "text"), "tail"))
'<tag><subtag>text</subtag>tail</tag>'
For simple tags, the factory also allows you to write E.tag(...) instead
of E('tag', ...):
>>> ET.tostring(E.tag())
'<tag/>'
>>> ET.tostring(E.tag("text"))
'<tag>text</tag>'
>>> ET.tostring(E.tag(E.subtag("text"), "tail"))
'<tag><subtag>text</subtag>tail</tag>'
Here's a somewhat larger example; this shows how to generate HTML
documents, using a mix of prepared factory functions for inline elements,
nested E.tag calls, and embedded XHTML fragments:
# some common inline elements
A = E.a
I = E.i
B = E.b
def CLASS(v):
    # helper function, 'class' is a reserved word
    return {'class': v}
page = (
    E.html(
        E.head(
            E.title("This is a sample document")
        ),
        E.body(
            E.h1("Hello!", CLASS("title")),
            E.p("This is a paragraph with ", B("bold"), " text in it!"),
            E.p("This is another paragraph, with a ",
                A("link", href="http://www.python.org"), "."),
            E.p("Here are some reserved characters: <spam&egg>."),
            ET.XML("<p>And finally, here is an embedded XHTML fragment.</p>"),
        )
    )
)
print ET.tostring(page)
Here's a prettyprinted version of the output from the above script:
<html>
  <head>
    <title>This is a sample document</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1 class="title">Hello!</h1>
    <p>This is a paragraph with <b>bold</b> text in it!</p>
    <p>This is another paragraph, with <a href="http://www.python.org">link</a>.</p>
    <p>Here are some reserved characters: <spam&egg>.</p>
    <p>And finally, here is an embedded XHTML fragment.</p>
  </body>
</html>
For namespace support, you can pass a namespace map (nsmap)
and/or a specific target namespace to the ElementMaker class:
>>> E = ElementMaker(namespace="http://my.ns/")
>>> print(ET.tostring( E.test ))
<test xmlns="http://my.ns/"/>
>>> E = ElementMaker(namespace="http://my.ns/", nsmap={'p':'http://my.ns/'})
>>> print(ET.tostring( E.test ))
<p:test xmlns:p="http://my.ns/"/>
    |  | 
        
          | __init__(self,
        typemap=None,
        namespace=None,
        nsmap=None,
        makeelement=None) x.__init__(...) initializes x; see help(type(x)) for signature
 | source code |  | 
    |  |  | 
    |  |  | 
    |  |  | 
    | a new object with type S, a subtype of T |  | 
    |  |  | 
    |  |  | 
  
    | Inherited from object:__delattr__,__format__,__hash__,__reduce_ex__,__repr__,__setattr__,__sizeof__,__str__,__subclasshook__ | 
    |  | _makeelement | 
    |  | _namespace | 
    |  | _nsmap | 
    |  | _typemap | 
  
    | Inherited from object:__class__ | 
| 
  x.__init__(...) initializes x; see help(type(x)) for signature| __init__(self,
        typemap=None,
        namespace=None,
        nsmap=None,
        makeelement=None)
    (Constructor)
 | source code |  
    Overrides:
        object.__init__
     | 
 
| x.__getattribute__('name') <==> x.name 
    Overrides:
        object.__getattribute__
     | 
 
| 
    Returns: a new object with type S, a subtype of TOverrides:
        object.__new__
     | 
 
| helper for pickle 
    Overrides:
        object.__reduce__
        (inherited documentation) |