xml.sax problem, help needed.

[Hari Sekhon]

I've written an xml parser using xml.sax which works most of the time
but often traces back when trying to read a file. The output of the
traceback is below:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cherrypy/_cphttptools.py ",
line 271, in run
main()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cherrypy/_cphttptools.py ",
line 502, in main
body = page_handler(*a rgs, **cherrypy.requ est.paramMap)
File "netscan.py ", line 160, in index
parse()
File "netscan.py ", line 117, in parse
parser.parse ( scan_results )
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/xml/sax/expatreader.py" , line 107, in parse
xmlreader.Incre mentalParser.pa rse(self, source)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/xml/sax/xmlreader.py", line 125, in parse
self.close()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/xml/sax/expatreader.py" , line 217, in close
self.feed("", isFinal = 1)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/xml/sax/expatreader.py" , line 211, in feed
self._err_handl er.fatalError(e xc)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/xml/sax/handler.py", line 38, in fatalError
raise exception
SAXParseExcepti on: /var/log/netscan/scanresults.txt :8:0: no element found
I don't understand why it's telling me that no element is found. It
looks like a problem inside xml.sax, but I'm not sure if I've caused
it or how. The xml file is good and is generated by nmap, it's not
missing tags or anything and is quite small. My script code which has
generated this is below:
#!/usr/bin/env python

import xml.sax
import sys
import os

dir = '/var/log/netscan'
scan = 'scanresults.tx t'
temp = 'tempscan.txt'

scan_results = dir + '/' + scan
temp_results = dir + '/' + temp

if not os.path.isdir(d ir):
sys.exit("%s does not exist! exiting..." % dir)

network = [
# {
# "status" : "",
# "address" : "",
# "hostname" : "",
# "port[0]" : "",
# "protocol[0]" : "",
# "service[0]" : "",
# "state[0]" : "",
# "product[0]" : "",
# "version[0]" : "",
# "extrainfo[0]" : ""
# }
]

class scanparser( xml.sax.Content Handler ):
def __init__(self):
self.host = {}
self.host['status'] = ""
self.host['address'] = ""
self.host['hostname'] = ""
self.host['port'] = []
self.host['protocol'] = []
self.host['service'] = []
self.host['state'] = []
self.host['product'] = []
self.host['version'] = []
self.host['extrainfo'] = []
def startElement(se lf,name,attribu tes):
global scan_start,scan _stop
if name =='nmaprun':
scan_start = attributes.getV alue('startstr' )
elif name == 'finished':
scan_stop = attributes.getV alue('timestr')
elif name =='status':
self.host['status'] = attributes.getV alue('state')

elif name == 'address':
if attributes.getV alue('addrtype' ) == 'ipv4':
self.host['address'] = attributes.getV alue('addr')

elif name == 'hostname':
self.host['hostname'] = attributes.getV alue('name')

elif name == 'port':
self.host['port'].append( attributes.getV alue('portid') )
self.host['protocol'].append( attributes.getV alue('protocol' ) )

elif name == 'service':
self.host['service'].append( attributes.getV alue('name') )
if attributes.has_ key('product'):
self.host['product'].append( attributes.getV alue('product') )
else:
self.host['product'].append("")
if attributes.has_ key('version'):
self.host['version'].append( attributes.getV alue('version') )
else:
self.host['version'].append('')
if attributes.has_ key('extrainfo' ):
self.host['extrainfo'].append(
attributes.getV alue('extrainfo ') )
else:
self.host['extrainfo'].append('')

elif name == 'state':
self.host['state'].append( attributes.getV alue('state') )
def endElement(self ,name):
if name == 'host':
network.append( self.host.copy( ))
self.host = {}
self.host['status'] = ""
self.host['address'] = ""
self.host['hostname'] = ""
self.host['port'] = []
self.host['protocol'] = []
self.host['service'] = []
self.host['state'] = []
self.host['product'] = []
self.host['version'] = []
self.host['extrainfo'] = []
def parse():
global network
parser = xml.sax.make_pa rser()
parser.setConte ntHandler( scanparser() )
network = []
parser.parse ( scan_results )

parse()

(Well, really it runs from cherrypy but for brevity I've left that out)
Any help or pointers anybody could give would be greatly appreciated...
Hari