An example of namespace management and simple Xpath search with ElementTree

element_tree_xpath.py

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import print_function

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

xdoc = """
    <ns:response xmlns:ns="http://myserver.example.com">
        <ns:return>
            <example>
                <inner>Some text here</inner>
            </example>
        </ns:return>
    </ns:response>
"""

ns = {"ns": "http://myserver.example.com"}
root = ET.fromstring(xdoc)

for index, child in enumerate(root):
    print("child", index, ":", child)

print("-------------------------")
print("ns:return:", root.find("ns:return", ns))
print("ALL inner tags:", root.findall("inner", ns))
print("xpath search:", root.find(".//example/inner"))