I'm using ElementTree 1.2.6 with Python 2.4 on WinXP. With ElementTree.py, I can define entities by setting the entity dict in the XMLTreeBuilder object. With cElementTree, I get different behavior depending on whether or not a DOCTYPE is present in the file. If I have a doctype, parsing works, but I get a segfault when the program finishes. If I do not have a doctype, I get 'undefined entity' exceptions, but no segfault



doc = """<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE patent-application-publication SYSTEM "pap-v15-2001-01-31.dtd" []>
<patent-application-publication>
<subdoc-abstract>
<paragraph id="A-0001" lvl="0">A new and distinct cultivar of Begonia plant named &lsquo;BCT9801BEG&rsquo;.</paragraph>
</subdoc-abstract>
</patent-application-publication>"""

#from elementtree import ElementTree as et
import cElementTree as et

entities = {
 u'rsquo' : u"&#x2019;", # <!--=single quotation mark, right -->
 u'lsquo' : u"&#x2018;", # <!--=single quotation mark, left -->
}

parser = et.XMLTreeBuilder()
parser.entity.update(entities)
parser.feed(doc)
t = parser.close()
print t.find('.//paragraph').text