gistfile1.py

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

tree = ET.parse('thorpe.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

for item in root.iter('DISS_para'):
	abstract = (item.text)
	myList = [abstract.split('\t')]
	''.join(map(str,myList))
	print(abstract)

Trying to add it to a CSV file, but it's parsing every letter. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import re
import csv

forCSV =[]
forCSV.append(['abstract'])

tree = ET.parse('thorpe.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

combined_abstracts = ""

for item in root.iter("DISS_para"):
combined_abstracts += re.sub('\t', '', item.text)

forCSV.append(combined_abstracts)

with open('outputFile.csv', 'w', newline='') as csvfile:
wr = csv.writer(csvfile, delimiter=',')
wr.writerows(forCSV)

sorry, that indentation is all fucked up

thanks, I found my mistake! you're a wizard!