You should look into vtd-xml, available in c, c++, java and c#. On Dec 20, 11:34 am, spaceman-spiff <ashish.mak...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi c.l.p folks > > This is a rather long post, but i wanted to include all the details & > everything i have tried so far myself, so please bear with me & read the > entire boringly long post. > > I am trying to parse a ginormous ( ~ 1gb) xml file. > > 0. I am a python & xml n00b, s& have been relying on the excellent beginner > book DIP(Dive_Into_Python3 by MP(Mark Pilgrim).... Mark , if u are readng > this, you are AWESOME & so is your witty & humorous writing style) > > 1. Almost all exmaples pf parsing xml in python, i have seen, start off with > these 4 lines of code. > > import xml.etree.ElementTree as etree > tree = etree.parse('*path_to_ginormous_xml*') > root = tree.getroot() #my huge xml has 1 root at the top level > print root > > 2. In the 2nd line of code above, as Mark explains in DIP, the parse function > builds & returns a tree object, in-memory(RAM), which represents the entire > document. > I tried this code, which works fine for a small ( ~ 1MB), but when i run this > simple 4 line py code in a terminal for my HUGE target file (1GB), nothing > happens. > In a separate terminal, i run the top command, & i can see a python process, > with memory (the VIRT column) increasing from 100MB , all the way upto 2100MB. > > I am guessing, as this happens (over the course of 20-30 mins), the tree > representing is being slowly built in memory, but even after 30-40 mins, > nothing happens. > I dont get an error, seg fault or out_of_memory exception. > > My hardware setup : I have a win7 pro box with 8gb of RAM & intel core2 quad > cpuq9400. > On this i am running sun virtualbox(3.2.12), with ubuntu 10.10 as guest os, > with 23gb disk space & 2gb(2048mb) ram, assigned to the guest ubuntu os. > > 3. I also tried using lxml, but an lxml tree is much more expensive, as it > retains more info about a node's context, including references to it's parent. > [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-hiperfparse/] > > When i ran the same 4line code above, but with lxml's elementree ( using the > import below in line1of the code above) > import lxml.etree as lxml_etree > > i can see the memory consumption of the python process(which is running the > code) shoot upto ~ 2700mb & then, python(or the os ?) kills the process as it > nears the total system memory(2gb) > > I ran the code from 1 terminal window (screenshot :http://imgur.com/ozLkB.png) > & ran top from another terminal (http://imgur.com/HAoHA.png) > > 4. I then investigated some streaming libraries, but am confused - there is > SAX[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_API_for_XML] , the iterparse > interface[http://effbot.org/zone/element-iterparse.htm] > > Which one is the best for my situation ? > > Any & all code_snippets/wisdom/thoughts/ideas/suggestions/feedback/comments/ > of the c.l.p community would be greatly appreciated. > Plz feel free to email me directly too. > > thanks a ton > > cheers > ashish > > email : > ashish.makani > domain:gmail.com > > p.s. > Other useful links on xml parsing in python > 0.http://diveintopython3.org/xml.html > 1.http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1513592/python-is-there-an-xml-par... > 2.http://codespeak.net/lxml/tutorial.html > 3.https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=parsing+a+huge+xml#!... > 4.http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-hiperfparse/ > 5.http://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htmhttp://effbot.org/zone/element-iterparse.htm > 6. SAX :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_API_for_XML
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