Add support to specify a custom `item` name about dicttoxml

[quandyfactory]

Would you like for your custom item name to replace "item" in all instances?

[murielsilveira]

No. I was thinking in a custom name for each list.
I don't know what is the best way to achieve this, but I was thinking something like this:

dict_obj = {
    'my_list': [
        {
            'foo': 'Abc',
            'bar': 123
        },
        {
            'foo': 'Def',
            'bar': 456
        }
    ],
    'other_list': [
        {
            'foo': 'Abc',
            'bar': 123
        },
        {
            'foo': 'Def',
            'bar': 456
        }
    ],
    'another_list': [
        {
            'foo': 'Abc',
            'bar': 123
        },
        {
            'foo': 'Def',
            'bar': 456
        }
    ]
}

list_item_names_configuration = {
    'my_list': 'my_item_name',
    'other_list': 'my_other_name'
}

xml = dicttoxml.dicttoxml(dict_obj, list_item_names=list_item_names_configuration)

that will produce something like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<root>
    <my_list>
        <my_item_name>
            <foo>Abc</foo>
            <bar>123</bar>
        </my_item_name>
        <my_item_name>
            <foo>Def</foo>
            <bar>456</bar>
        </my_item_name>
    </my_list>
    <other_list>
        <my_other_name>
            <foo>Abc</foo>
            <bar>123</bar>
        </my_other_name>
        <my_other_name>
            <foo>Def</foo>
            <bar>456</bar>
        </my_other_name>
    </other_list>
    <another_list>
        <item>
            <foo>Abc</foo>
            <bar>123</bar>
        </item>
        <item>
            <foo>Def</foo>
            <bar>456</bar>
        </item>
    </another_list>
</root>

[mbingel]

My first day with dicttoxml and I also have custom item names on my wishlist.

My solution for dicttoxml would be a mapping for item names of parents.

<order>
  <order_items> 
    <item>
      <id>1</id>
    </item>
  </order_items>
</order>

order_items => order_item

<order>
  <order_items> 
    <order_item>
      <id>1</id>
    </order_item>
  </order_items>
</order>

For a quick fix I replace all item with the parent name stripping the last character (usually the plural s)

dom = parseString(orders)
items = dom.getElementsByTagName('item')
for item in items:
    dom.renameNode(item, '', item.parentNode.nodeName[:-1])
print(dom.toprettyxml())

[quandyfactory]

Thank you for your contribution. I'm working on an implementation for this and should have something in the next few weeks or so.

[badsequel]

Any progress on this?

[quandyfactory]

I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to implement this functionality. If someone doesn't want to wait and sends a pull request, I'll happily consider it.

[quandyfactory]

Not sure if it meets your specific needs, but version 1.7 includes the optional ability to define a function for naming items, taking the list parent element name as an argument.

[theshahzaibc]

I was having same issue and fixed using item_func
I have tried list_item_names but it's not a valid parameter for dicttoxml() function.
So, you can use the same.
Something like this:

list_item_names_config = lambda x: 'custom-item-name'

Xml = dicttoxml(dataobject, custom_root='custom-root', item_func=list_item_names_config,
                                     attr_type=False)