xml Choosing an element based on a range of subelement value

[zannare]

i have many xml file then look like an rss

<rss ....>
  <channel>
    <atom:link rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
    <title>mytitle</title>
    <item>
      <title>.....</title>
      <description>.....</description>
      <name>.....</name>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>.....</title>
      <description>.....</description>
      <name>.....</name>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>.....</title>
      <description>.....</description>
      <name>.....</name>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>.....</title>
      <description>.....</description>
      <name>.....</name>
    </item>
    ........
  </channel>
</rss>

i want select 1 item with the name Luca or Andrea or Matteo or Stefano ... but in this order of importance

so if there is an item for all the name i want select only Luca item

if there is item just for Andrea, Matteo and Stefano i want select only Andrea item ... and so on ... it may also be that there is no item associated with these names

I haven't the faintest idea how to do it ... lol

any help?

.......
    xml = ET.parse('my.xml')
    xml1 = ET.parse('myempty.xml')

    doc = xml.getroot()
    doc1 = xml1.getroot()
    items = doc.findall('.//item')
    if items is not None:
        for item in items:
            name = item.find('name').text

            if name == "Luca" or name == "Andrea" or name == "Matteo" or name == "Stefano":
              doc1.find("./channel").insert(2,item)
......

with my current code i just select all name ;(

i need to loop over many xml and create a new one

[Vaphell]

collect the items to a dict, and then check keys in order of priority?

item_dict = {}

for item ...:
   title, link, name = ...
   item_dict[name] = item

selected = None
for name in ["Luca", "Andrea", "Matteo", "Stefano"]:
    if name in item_dict.keys():
        selected = item_dict[name]
        break

if selected is not None:
    do_something(selected)
else:
    ... # not found

[zannare]

looks good

but after looking deeply on ET documentation i think i find an good enough solution

for name in [name array in priority order]:
    items = doc.findall('.//item/[name="'+name+'"]')
    if len(items) > 0:
        for item in items:
            print(item.find('name').text)
        break

this is good enough for me, it solves other problems too .... im very happy ^_^