Search and remove element with elementTree in Python

You could use xpath to select an Element's parent.

file = open('test.xml', "r")
elem = ElementTree.parse(file)

namespace = "{http://somens}"

props = elem.findall('.//{0}prop'.format(namespace))
for prop in props:
    type = prop.get('type', None)
    if type == 'json':
        value = json.loads(prop.attrib['value'])
        if value['name'] == 'Page1.Button1':
            # Get parent and remove this prop
            parent = prop.find("..")
            parent.remove(prop)

http://docs.python.org/2/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#supported-xpath-syntax

Except if you try that it doesn't work: http://elmpowered.skawaii.net/?p=74

So instead you have to:

file = open('test.xml', "r")
elem = ElementTree.parse(file)

namespace = "{http://somens}"
search = './/{0}prop'.format(namespace)

# Use xpath to get all parents of props    
prop_parents = elem.findall(search + '/..')
for parent in prop_parents:
    # Still have to find and iterate through child props
    for prop in parent.findall(search):
        type = prop.get('type', None)
        if type == 'json':
            value = json.loads(prop.attrib['value'])
            if value['name'] == 'Page1.Button1':
                parent.remove(prop)

It is two searches and a nested loop. The inner search is only on Elements known to contain props as first children, but that may not mean much depending on your schema.