Finding Unique Elements in Two Lists via XML Conversion

This function takes two lists as arguments, converts them into XML format using the lxml library, and then finds unique elements that are not present in both lists.

Technology Stack : Python, lxml

Code Type : Function

Code Difficulty : Intermediate

                
                    
def find_unique_elements(list1, list2):
    from lxml import etree

    # Create a string representation of both lists
    list1_xml = etree.Element("list", attrib={"type": "list1"})
    for item in list1:
        list1_xml.append(etree.SubElement(list1_xml, "item", attrib={"value": str(item)}))

    list2_xml = etree.Element("list", attrib={"type": "list2"})
    for item in list2:
        list2_xml.append(etree.SubElement(list2_xml, "item", attrib={"value": str(item)}))

    # Merge the XML representations
    merged_xml = etree.Element("merged_list")
    merged_xml.append(list1_xml)
    merged_xml.append(list2_xml)

    # Find unique elements
    unique_elements = []
    for item in list1 + list2:
        if not any(etree.tostring(item_element) == etree.tostring(etree.Element("item", attrib={"value": str(item)})) for item_element in merged_xml.iter("item")):
            unique_elements.append(item)

    return unique_elements