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ODFPY
Manual

Module list

Every element in the OpenDocument XML format is implemented as a Python class that derives from the Element class. The Element class has the following attributes:

nodeType A code representing the type of the node.
parentNode The parent of this node or None if it has not yet been added to the tree.
childNodes A list of child nodes.
firstChild The first child of this element.
lastChild The last child of this element.
previousSibling The node immediately preceding this node.
nextSibling The node immediately following this node.

The Element class has the following methods:

  • addElement(element, check_grammar=True) – adds an element as a child to another element. It will check if the element can legally be a child, and raise an exception if not.
  • addText(text) – adds text to an element
  • addCDATA(cdata) – adds text, but treats it as CDATA.
  • setAttribute(attr, value, check_grammar=True) – adds or sets an attribute.
  • getAttribute(attr) – gets an attribute by name.
  • hasChildNodes() – Tells whether this element has any children; text nodes, subelements of any kind.
  • insertBefore(newchild, refchild) – Inserts the node newchild before the existing child node refchild.
  • appendChild(newchild) – Adds the node newchild to the end of the list of children.
  • removeChild(oldchild) – Removes the child node.
  • getElementsByType(class) – Returns a list of all descendant elements of the given type.

The instantiation of an Element or a derived class is done the normal way you create an instance of a Python class. You must provide the required attributes. This can be done in two ways; as arguments, or as an attribute dictionary.

An example of arguments: 

from odf.style import Style
h1style = Style(name="Heading 1", family="paragraph")

An example of attributes dictionary:

from odf.style import Style
h1style = Style(attributes={'name':'Heading 1', 'family':'paragraph'})

And finally, there are two convenient ways to add a text node. As text and cdata: 

from odf import text
p = text.P(text=”Hello World\n”)

s = text.Script(cdata=”if (y < x) print 'less';”, language=”JavaScript”)

There are so many elements, and some of them have the same name, that we have organised them in modules. To use a module you must first import it as a Python module. To create a paragraph do: 

from odf import text
p = text.P(text=”Hello World\n”)