I have an XML configuration file used by legacy software, which I cannot change or format. The goal is to use Python 3.9 and transform the XML file into a dictionary, using only xml.etree.ElementTree library.

I was originally looking at this reply, which produces almost the expected results.

Scenario.xml file contents:

<Scenario Name="{{ env_name }}">
    <Gateways>
        <Alpha Host="{{ host.alpha_name }}" Order="1">
           <Config>{{ CONFIG_DIR }}/alpha.xml</Config>
           <Arguments>-t1 -t2</Arguments>
        </Alpha>
        <Beta Host="{{ host.beta_name }}" Order="2">
           <Config>{{ CONFIG_DIR }}/beta.xml</Config>
           <Arguments>-t1</Arguments>
        </Beta>
        <Gamma Host="{{ host.gamma_name }}" Order="3">
           <Config>{{ CONFIG_DIR }}/gamma.xml</Config>
           <Arguments>-t2</Arguments>
           <!--<Data Count="58" />-->
        </Gamma>
    </Gateways>
</Scenario>

Python code to convert XML file to dictionary:

from pprint import pprint
from xml.etree import ElementTree


def format_xml_to_dictionary(element: ElementTree.Element):
    '''
    Format xml to dictionary

    :param element: Tree element
    :return: Dictionary formatted result
    '''
    try:
        return {
            **element.attrib,
            '#text': element.text.strip(),
            **{i.tag: format_xml_to_dictionary(i) for i in element}
        }
    except ElementTree.ParseError as e:
        raise e

if __name__ == '__main__':
    tree = ElementTree.parse('Scenario.xml').getroot()
    scenario = format_xml_to_dictionary(tree)
    pprint(scenario)

Functional code output with <!--<Data Count="58" />--> commented:

$ python test.py
{'#text': '',
 'Gateways': {'#text': '',
              'Alpha': {'#text': '',
                        'Arguments': {'#text': '-t1 -t2'},
                        'Config': {'#text': '{{ CONFIG_DIR }}/alpha.xml'},
                        'Host': '{{ host.alpha_name }}',
                        'Order': '1'},
              'Beta': {'#text': '',
                       'Arguments': {'#text': '-t1'},
                       'Config': {'#text': '{{ CONFIG_DIR }}/beta.xml'},
                       'Host': '{{ host.beta_name }}',
                       'Order': '2'},
              'Gamma': {'#text': '',
                        'Arguments': {'#text': '-t2'},
                        'Config': {'#text': '{{ CONFIG_DIR }}/gamma.xml'},
                        'Host': '{{ host.gamma_name }}',
                        'Order': '3'}},
 'Name': '{{ env_name }}'}

I’m trying to address two issues:

1. Scenario is missing from dictionary keys, because root node is already the Scenario tag, I’m not sure what I need to do, in order to make it part of dictionary
2. If I uncomment <Data Count="58" />, I get the following error:

AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'strip'

I’m not sure what type of if/else condition I need to implement, I tried something like that, but it is setting all #text values to '' instead of stripping them:

'#text': element.text.strip() if isinstance(
    element.text, ElementTree.Element
) else '',