# xml

This section describes the thin wrapper api functions for processing XML data. The underlying functionality primarily deals with dictionaries and [Element](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html) or [ElementTree](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#module-xml.etree.ElementTree) objects

[functions](/docs/xml/functions.md)

The thin api functions used for the maci library that enable XML functionality, use and wrap the native xml.etree library shipped with the python standard library and the xmltodict external library for its underlying functionality.

For more information on the xml.etree api, visit: <https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html>

For more information on xmltodict, visit: <https://pypi.org/project/xmltodict/>

**Security awareness**: It is important to evaluate handling XML data carefully as there are known vulnerabilities in dealing with XML data. Please refer to the official python documentation above.

Additionally, see the provided tooling to potentially assist with vulnerabilities [\_defuse\_xml\_stdlib](/docs/xml/functions/maci._defuse_xml_stdlib.md)


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