'Return the value of a top level attribute of the XML object.
In case the attribute has not been set, a default value can be
returned instead. An empty string is returned if no other default
is supplied.
:param name: The name of the attribute.
:param default: Optional value to return if the attribute has not
been set. An empty string is returned otherwise.'

def _get_attr(self, name, default=u''):

    return self.xml.attrib.get(name, default)
