Parsing specifically nested XML Tags

Question

I've written a function that works however I'm sure there is a better way. I need to parse specific tags from an xml document (Microsoft Word docx document.xml).

Here is the general structure of the xml in question.

//A ton of crap
...
<w:tbl>
  <w:tr>
    <w:tc>
      <w:p>
        <w:r>
          <w:t>Data_I_want</w:t>
        </w:r>
      </w:p>
    </w:tc>
  </w:tr>
  <w:tr>
    <w:tc>
      <w:p>
        <w:r>
          <w:t>Data_I_want</w:t>
        </w:r>
      </w:p>
    </w:tc>
  </w:tr>
</w:tbl>
...
// A ton more crap
//Same structure repeats and I need to grab that n number of times where n is unknown.
// Also the order of the data must be preserved within each parent tbl tag.

Here is an excerpt of my code:

def recurse_search_tables(self, xml_data):
    """
    Recursively traverse the xml child nodes..
    """
    tag_base = r'{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main}'        
    for child in xml_data:
        if child.tag.replace(tag_base,'') == 'tbl':
                for c in child:
                    if c.tag.replace(tag_base,'') == 'tr':
                        for tr in c:
                            if tr.tag.replace(tag_base,'') == 'tc':
                                for tc in tr:
                                    if tc.tag.replace(tag_base,'') == 'p': 
                                        for p in tc:
                                            if p.tag.replace(tag_base,'') == 'r':
                                                for r in p:
                                                    if r.tag.replace(tag_base,'') == 't':
                                                        try:
                                                            self.decide_to_print(r.text.encode('UTF-8'))
                                                        except:
                                                            pass
                                                        finally:
                                                            self.recurse_search_tables(child)
                                                    else:
                                                        self.recurse_search_tables(child)
                                            else:
                                                self.recurse_search_tables(child)
                                    else:
                                        self.recurse_search_tables(child)
                            else:
                                self.recurse_search_tables(child)
                    else:
                        self.recurse_search_tables(child)
        else:
            self.recurse_search_tables(child)

Calling that mess via:

tree = ET.parse('document.xml')
root = tree.getroot()
self.recurse_search_tables(root)

Now like i said, this code works however it isn't the fastest (but is is suitable). How can I improve this?

Answer 1

Thanks to Ferada for the hint. Here is what I was able to replace that monster with. Execution time went from more than 590 seconds to less than 2 seconds.

Note: all of the string replacements were another performance pain point, using a single string is much quicker here.

def recurse_search_tables(self, root):
    # Get individual tables and their children nodes. 
    for table in root.iter(r'{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main}tbl'):
        for t in table.iter(r'{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main}t'):
            self.decide_to_print(t.text.encode('UTF-8'))