lxml
====

Motto
-----

"the thrills without the strangeness"

To explain the motto:

"Programming with libxml2 is like the thrilling embrace of an exotic
stranger. It seems to have the potential to fulfill your wildest
dreams, but there's a nagging voice somewhere in your head warning you
that you're about to get screwed in the worst way." (`a quote by Mark
Pilgrim`_)

Mark Pilgrim was describing in particular the experience a Python
programmer has when dealing with libxml2. libxml2's default Python
bindings are fast, thrilling, powerful, and your code might fail in
some horrible way that you really shouldn't have to worry about when
writing Python code. lxml tries to combine the power of libxml2 with
the ease of use of Python.

.. _`a quote by Mark Pilgrim`: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/02/18/libxml2

Aims
----

The C libraries libxml2_ and libxslt_ have huge benefits:

* Standards-compliant XML support.

* Full-featured.

* Actively maintained by XML experts.

* fast. fast! FAST!

.. _libxml2: http://www.xmlsoft.org

.. _libxslt: http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT

These libraries already ship with Python bindings, but these Python
bindings have problems. In particular:

* very low level and C-ish (not Pythonic).

* underdocumented and huge, you get lost in them.

* UTF-8 in API, instead of Python unicode strings.

* can cause segfaults from Python.

* have to do manual memory management!

lxml is a new Python binding for libxml2 and libxslt, completely
independent from these existing Python bindings. Its aim:

* Pythonic API.

* Documented.

* Use Python unicode strings in API.

* Safe (no segfaults).

* No manual memory management!

lxml aims to provide a Pythonic API by following as much as possible
the `ElementTree API`_. We're trying to avoid having to invent too
many new APIs, or you having to learn new things -- XML is complicated
enough.

.. _`ElementTree API`: http://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htm