code: def recCopyElement(oldelement):
      
      newelement = ETREE.Element(oldelement.tag, oldelement.attrib)
      if len(oldelement.getchildren()) > 0:
          for childelement in oldelement.getchildren():
              newelement.append(recCopyElement(childelement))
      return newelement
docs: Generates a copy of an xml element and recursively of all
      child elements.
  
      :param oldelement: an instance of lxml.etree._Element
  
      :returns: a copy of the "oldelement"
  
      .. warning::
          doesn't copy ``.text`` or ``.tail`` of xml elements