import xml.dom.minidom as MD
from pprint import pprint as pp

doc = MD.parse('npclist.xml')
doc
pp(dir(doc))
print doc.toxml()

top = doc.documentElement
top
print top.toxml()

children = top.childNodes
children

npc1 = children[1]
npc1
npc1.toxml()
print npc1.toxml()

npc1_children = npc1.childNodes
npc1_children

npcs = top.getElementsByTagName('npc')
npcs
npcs[0] == npc1

npc1_items = npc1.getElementsByTagName('item')
npc1_items

npc3 = npcs[2]
npc3_items = npc3.getElementsByTagName('item')
npc3_items

npc1_attrs = npc1.attributes
npc1_attrs
npc1_attrs.items()
dict(npc1_attrs.items())
dict(npc1_attrs.items())[u'class']
npc1_attrs.get('class')
npc1_attrs.get('class').value
npc1.attributes.get('class').value
npc1.toxml()
npc1.toxml().encode('ascii')