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+.. _stanzabase:
+
+==============
+Stanza Objects
+==============
+
+.. module:: sleekxmpp.xmlstream.stanzabase
+
+The :mod:`~sleekmxpp.xmlstream.stanzabase` module provides a wrapper for the
+standard :mod:`~xml.etree.ElementTree` module that makes working with XML
+less painful. Instead of having to manually move up and down an element
+tree and insert subelements and attributes, you can interact with an object
+that behaves like a normal dictionary or JSON object, which silently maps
+keys to XML attributes and elements behind the scenes.
+
+Overview
+--------
+
+The usefulness of this layer grows as the XML you have to work with
+becomes nested. The base unit here, :class:`ElementBase`, can map to a
+single XML element, or several depending on how advanced of a mapping
+is desired from interface keys to XML structures. For example, a single
+:class:`ElementBase` derived class could easily describe:
+
+.. code-block:: xml
+
+    <message to="user@example.com" from="friend@example.com">
+      <body>Hi!</body>
+      <x:extra>
+        <x:item>Custom item 1</x:item>
+        <x:item>Custom item 2</x:item>
+        <x:item>Custom item 3</x:item>
+      </x:extra>
+    </message>
+
+If that chunk of XML were put in the :class:`ElementBase` instance
+``msg``, we could extract the data from the XML using::
+
+    >>> msg['extra']
+    ['Custom item 1', 'Custom item 2', 'Custom item 3']
+
+Provided we set up the handler for the ``'extra'`` interface to load the
+``<x:item>`` element content into a list.
+
+The key concept is that given an XML structure that will be repeatedly
+used, we can define a set of :term:`interfaces` which when we read from,
+write to, or delete, will automatically manipulate the underlying XML
+as needed. In addition, some of these interfaces may in turn reference
+child objects which expose interfaces for particularly complex child
+elements of the original XML chunk.
+
+.. seealso::
+    :ref:`create-stanza-interfaces`.
+
+Because the :mod:`~sleekxmpp.xmlstream.stanzabase` module was developed
+as part of an `XMPP <http://xmpp.org>`_ library, these chunks of XML are
+referred to as :term:`stanzas <stanza>`, and in SleekXMPP we refer to a
+subclass of :class:`ElementBase` which defines the interfaces needed for
+interacting with a given :term:`stanza` a :term:`stanza object`.
+
+To make dealing with more complicated and nested :term:`stanzas <stanza>`
+or XML chunks easier, :term:`stanza objects <stanza object>` can be
+composed in two ways: as iterable child objects or as plugins. Iterable
+child stanzas, or :term:`substanzas`, are accessible through a special
+``'substanzas'`` interface. This option is useful for stanzas which
+may contain more than one of the same kind of element. When there is
+only one child element, the plugin method is more useful. For plugins,
+a parent stanza object delegates one of its XML child elements to the
+plugin stanza object. Here is an example:
+
+.. code-block:: xml
+
+    <iq type="result">
+      <query xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info">
+        <identity category="client" type="bot" name="SleekXMPP Bot" />
+      </query>
+    </iq>
+
+We can can arrange this stanza into two objects: an outer, wrapper object for
+dealing with the ``<iq />`` element and its attributes, and a plugin object to
+control the ``<query />`` payload element. If we give the plugin object the
+name ``'disco_info'`` (using its :attr:`ElementBase.plugin_attrib` value), then
+we can access the plugin as so::
+
+    >>> iq['disco_info']
+    '<query xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info">
+      <identity category="client" type="bot" name="SleekXMPP Bot" />
+    </query>'
+
+We can then drill down through the plugin object's interfaces as desired::
+
+    >>> iq['disco_info']['identities']
+    [('client', 'bot', 'SleekXMPP Bot')]
+
+Plugins may also add new interfaces to the parent stanza object as if they
+had been defined by the parent directly, and can also override the behaviour
+of an interface defined by the parent.
+
+.. seealso::
+
+    - :ref:`create-stanza-plugins`
+    - :ref:`create-extension-plugins`
+    - :ref:`override-parent-interfaces`
+     
+
+Registering Stanza Plugins
+--------------------------
+
+.. autofunction:: register_stanza_plugin
+
+ElementBase
+-----------
+
+.. autoclass:: ElementBase
+    :members:
+    :private-members:
+    :special-members:
+
+StanzaBase
+----------
+
+.. autoclass:: StanzaBase
+    :members: