IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: \'states.xml\' Any suggestions on how I can fix this? By the way, it\'s in Python. Any help will be appreciated! Solution There can be several reasons for the given error. 1) states.xml is not present on yur system to be read by the python code 2) states.xml file is present in your system but cannot be accessed by the python code. make sure you have give the correct path of file in the python code or place the file in same destination as the python code i.e The file may be existing but may have a different path. Try writing the absolute path for the file. When the file is properly read, it will be parsed using the parse function and the contents will be stored in tree.