What's the best way to convert XML to a dictionary in Python? or How can I efficiently parse XML into

xmltodict is a solid choice for python XML to dict conversion—super easy to use and handles nested tags pretty well.

If you want something built-in, check out `xml.etree.ElementTree`. It’s a bit more manual but gives you full control.

For attributes, just loop through `.attrib` and merge them into your dict. Clunky? Maybe, but it works.