ElementPath

from lxml import etree
"""
 Selecting the names of all athlets from JAMAICA
 by a Elementpath (allmost like XPATH)
 No attempt to remove duplicates
"""
xmlfile="../lxml/all_results.xml"
#xmlfile="all_results.xml"
def testing1():
    tree=etree.parse(xmlfile)
    names=tree.findall(".//athlet[nation='JAM']/name")
    for n in names:
        print (n.text)
"""
 Selecting the names of all athlets from a country
 given as parameter, remove duplicates and sort
"""
def testing2(country):
    tree=etree.parse(xmlfile)
    path=".//athlet[nation='%s']/name"%country
    names=tree.findall(path)
    result=[]
    for n in names:
        if result.count(n.text)==0:
            result.append(n.text)
    result.sort()
    print (result)
"""
 Selecting all names as textcontent of
 name tags identified by iterating a Elementpath
 thorughout the tree
"""
def testing3():
    tree=etree.parse(xmlfile)
    names=[b.text for b in tree.iterfind(".//name")]
    result=[]
    for n in names:
        if result.count(n)==0:
            result.append(n)
    result.sort()
    for r in result:
        print (r)
print('------- testing1 --------')
testing1()
print('------- testing2 --------')
testing2('JAM')
print('------- testing2 --------')
testing3()