Answer by alecxe for Python: Get specific node values and attributes using lxml + objectify + findall or fromstring

You need to add namespace prefixes in the xpath expression:

tree = etree.fromstring(open("c:/temp/CVE/sample.xml").read()).getroottree().getroot()for descript in tree.xpath('//ns:entry/ns:desc/ns:descript', namespaces={'ns': 'http://nvd.nist.gov/feeds/cve/1.2'}):    print descript.text    print descript.attrib.get('source')

Prints:

Unspecified vulnerability in IBM OpenPages GRC Platform 6.1.0.1 before IF4 allows remote attackers to bypass intended access restrictions via unknown vectors.cveHP Enterprise Maps 1.00 allows remote authenticated users to read arbitrary files via a WSDL document containing an XML external entity declaration in conjunction with an entity reference within a GetQuote operation, related to an XML External Entity (XXE) issue.cve

Also see this relevant thread:

• lxml etree xmlparser remove unwanted namespace