from xml.etree.ElementTree import ElementTree
from xml.etree.ElementTree import Element
from xml.etree.ElementTree import SubElement as SE

tree = ElementTree(file=xmlfile)
root = tree.getroot()

<item sid='1712' name='大CC'  >
<a id=1></a>
<a id=2></a>
</item>

AArry = item.findall('a')

childs =  item.getchildren()
     for subItem in childs:
           print subItem.get('id')

item = Element("item", {'sid' : '1713', 'name' : 'ityouhui'})
root.append(item)

SE(root,'item',{'sid':'1713','name':'ityouhui'})

print root.find('item/name').text
print item.get('name')

print item.items()?????? # [('sid', '1712'), ('name', '大CC')]
print item.attrib??????? # {'sid': '1712', 'name': '大CC'}

indent(root)
book.write(xmlfile,'utf-8')

## Get pretty look
def indent( elem, level=0):
    i = "\n" + level*"  "
    if len(elem):
        if not elem.text or not elem.text.strip():
            elem.text = i + "  "
        for e in elem:
            indent(e, level+1)
        if not e.tail or not e.tail.strip():
            e.tail = i
    if level and (not elem.tail or not elem.tail.strip()):
        elem.tail = i
    return elem