import StringIO, lxml.etree

xmldata="<root>data</root>"
buffer=StringIO.StringIO(xmldata)
for event, element in lxml.etree.iterparse(buffer):
        print "%s %s %s" % (event, element.tag, element.text)
buffer.close()

buffer=StringIO.StringIO()
buffer.write(xmldata)
buffer.seek(0) # YAY! thanks nosklo (#python@freenode)
for event, element in lxml.etree.iterparse(buffer):
        print "%s %s %s" % (event, element.tag, element.text)
buffer.close()