Here's an lxml snippet that extracts an attribute as well as element text (your question was a little ambiguous about which one you needed, so I'm including both):

from lxml import etree
doc = etree.parse(filename)

memoryElem = doc.find('memory')
print memoryElem.text        # element text
print memoryElem.get('unit') # attribute


You asked (in a comment on Ali Afshar's answer) whether minidom is a good alternative.  Here's the equivalent code using minidom; judge for yourself which is nicer:

import xml.dom.minidom as minidom
doc = minidom.parse(filename)

memoryElem = doc.getElementsByTagName('memory')[0]
print ''.join( [node.data for node in memoryElem.childNodes] )
print memoryElem.getAttribute('unit')


lxml seems like the winner to me.

Reading XML file and fetching its attributes value in Python
In a previous question I asked how to add a column to the Posts page in the Administration section, and got a working answer. But now I need to know how to delete an existing column (e.g. the Date column) so that my customized Date column replaces it.
