Elementtree Setting Attribute Order

I am trying to write a python script to standardise generic XML files, used to configure websites and website forms. However to do this I would like to either maintain the original

Solution 1:

Apply monkey patch as mentioned below:: in ElementTree.py file, there is a function named as _serialize_xml; in this function; apply the below mentioned patch;

        ##for k, v in sorted(items):  # remove the sorted herefor k, v in items:
            ifisinstance(k, QName):
                k = k.text
            ifisinstance(v, QName):
                v = qnames[v.text]
            else:
                v = _escape_attrib(v, encoding)
            write(" %s=\"%s\"" % (qnames[k], v))

here; remove the sorted(items) and make it just items like i have done above. Also to disable sorting based on namespace(because in above patch; sorting is still present when namespace is present for xml attribute; otherwise if namespace is not present; then above is working fine); so to do that, replace all {} with collections.OrderedDict() from ElementTree.py

Now you have all attributes in a order as you have added them to that xml element. Before doing all of above; read the copyright message by Fredrik Lundh that is present in ElementTree.py