special_dragonfly a écrit :
>  Hello,
(snip)
>  The function doesn't return anything, but it's called often enough and 
>  depending on the optimisation I'll be able to use the same style in other 
>  areas of the program.
>  
>  previous code:
>  def CreatePerson(text_buffer):
>      dom=xml.dom.minidom.parseString(text_buffer)
>      reflist = dom.getElementsByTagName('Country')
>      Country = reflist[0].firstChild.nodeValue
>      reflist = dom.getElementsByTagName('Age')
>      Age = reflist[0].firstChild.nodeValue
>      reflist = dom.getElementsByTagName('Surname')
>      Surname = reflist[0].firstChild.nodeValue
>      reflist = dom.getElementsByTagName('Forename')
>      Forename = reflist[0].firstChild.nodeValue
>      cursor.execute('INSERT INTO Person VALUES(?,?,?)', (Forename + "-" + 
>  Surname, Age, Country))
>      connection.commit()
>  
>  I've changed it now to this:
>  def CreatePerson(text_buffer):
>      dom=xml.dom.minidom.parseString(text_buffer)
>      elements=['Country','Age','Surname','Forename']
>      Values=[]
>      for element in elements:
>          reflist=dom.getElementsByTagName(element)
>          Values.append(reflist[0].firstChild.nodeValue)
>          # I can get away with the above because I know the structure of the 
>  XML
>      cursor.execute('INSERT INTO Person 
>  VALUES(?,?,?)',(Forename+"-"+Surname,Age,Country))
>      connection.commit()

A common python optimisation trick is to stote local references to save 
on attribute lookup time, ie:

# local ref to parseString
import dom
dom_parseString=xml.dom.minidom.parseString

def CreatePerson(text_buffer):
     dom = dom_parseString(text_buffer)
     elements=['Country','Age','Surname','Forename']
     values=[]
     getElementByTagName = dom.getElementsByTagName
     for element in elements:
         reflist = getElementsByTagName(element)
         values.append(reflist[0].firstChild.nodeValue)


But as Alex already pointed out, you'd be better using (c)ElementTree.

>  They both seem ugly IMO (read: longer than intuitively necessary),

I'd say this is a common problem with XML :-/
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