one way to use lxml.find with namespaced elements

lxml_namespace.ipynb

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   "cells": [
    {
     "cell_type": "code",
     "collapsed": false,
     "input": [
      "from lxml import etree\n",
      "\n",
      "xml_string = u\"\"\"<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>\n",
      "<rdf:RDF xmlns:dc=\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\"\n",
      "  xmlns:geo=\"http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#\"\n",
      "  xmlns:rdf=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#\">\n",
      "  <geo:Point rdf:nodeID=\"aid23375570\">\n",
      "    <dc:description>600 Montgomery St, San Francisco CA 94111</dc:description>\n",
      "    <geo:long>-122.403082</geo:long>\n",
      "    <geo:lat>37.794628</geo:lat>\n",
      "  </geo:Point>\n",
      "</rdf:RDF>\"\"\"\n",
      "\n",
      "root = etree.fromstring(xml_string)\n",
      "    \n",
      "long = root.find(\".//{http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#}long\").text\n",
      "lat = root.find(\".//{http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#}lat\").text\n",
      "print long, lat\n",
      "\n",
      "\n"
     ],
     "language": "python",
     "metadata": {},
     "outputs": [
      {
       "output_type": "stream",
       "stream": "stdout",
       "text": [
        "-122.403082 37.794628\n"
       ]
      }
     ],
     "prompt_number": 1
    },
    {
     "cell_type": "code",
     "collapsed": false,
     "input": [
      "# use xpath with namespace\n",
      "\n",
      "print root.xpath(r\"//g:long\", namespaces={'g':'http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#'})[0].text\n",
      "print root.xpath(r\"//g:lat\", namespaces={'g':'http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#'})[0].text"
     ],
     "language": "python",
     "metadata": {},
     "outputs": [
      {
       "output_type": "stream",
       "stream": "stdout",
       "text": [
        "-122.403082\n",
        "37.794628\n"
       ]
      }
     ],
     "prompt_number": 2
    },
    {
     "cell_type": "markdown",
     "metadata": {},
     "source": [
      "It turns out that there is a good explanation on stackoverflow for the approach shown here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/4210882/7782"
     ]
    },
    {
     "cell_type": "code",
     "collapsed": false,
     "input": [],
     "language": "python",
     "metadata": {},
     "outputs": []
    }
   ],
   "metadata": {}
  }
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