dot_files/dot_claude/skills/lxml-iterparse-recover/SKILL.md

name	description	author	version	date
lxml-iterparse-recover	Handle malformed XML in lxml iterparse with recover mode. Use when: (1) lxml.etree.XMLSyntaxError "AttValue: ' expected" or similar parse errors on large XML files like Apple Health exports, (2) need streaming XML parsing that tolerates broken attributes, (3) tried passing parser=XMLParser(recover=True) to iterparse and got "unexpected keyword argument 'parser'". The recover flag is a direct parameter of iterparse, not passed via a parser object.	Claude Code	1.0.0	2026-02-08

lxml iterparse: Recovering from Malformed XML

Problem

Large XML files (e.g., Apple Health exports) sometimes contain malformed attribute values with unescaped characters. lxml's iterparse raises XMLSyntaxError and aborts parsing, losing all data after the corrupt element.

Context / Trigger Conditions

• Parsing large XML files with lxml.etree.iterparse
• Error: lxml.etree.XMLSyntaxError: AttValue: ' expected, line NNNN, column NNN
• The malformed XML is from an external source you can't control (Apple Health, etc.)
• You want to skip corrupt elements and continue parsing

Solution

Pass recover=True directly to iterparse — it's a first-class parameter:

from lxml import etree

context = etree.iterparse(
    file_path,
    events=("end",),
    tag=("Record", "Workout"),
    recover=True,  # Skip malformed elements instead of aborting
)

Common mistake: Trying to pass a parser object:

# WRONG — iterparse does NOT accept a parser= keyword
parser = etree.XMLParser(recover=True)
context = etree.iterparse(file_path, parser=parser)
# TypeError: __init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'parser'

Verification

Parse the full file without XMLSyntaxError. Check context.error_log after parsing to see which elements were skipped.

Notes

• recover=True defaults to True for HTML mode, False for XML mode
• Recovered elements may have missing or truncated attributes — always validate parsed values before using them
• Other useful iterparse flags: huge_tree=True for very deep/large documents
• The full list of iterparse parameters can be viewed with help(etree.iterparse)