markdown-extractor 0.1.1

Extract structured sections from Markdown by header — bracket-style access with robust handling of code blocks, tables, math, and YAML front matter.

markdown-extractor

Turn a Markdown document into a navigable tree of sections keyed by header, then drop into the body of any section to get its blocks, plain text, JSON, or HTML — with optional XPath filtering.

• Header tree — bracket access, recursive search, ASCII tree.
• Block tree — paragraphs, ordered/unordered lists with nesting, code fences, blockquotes — parsed lazily per section.
• Renderers — to_list(), to_dict(), to_json(), to_html(), to_text(), all on both MDExtractor and any Section.
• Robust parsing — headers inside code blocks, tables, math blocks, and YAML front matter are correctly ignored.
• Zero runtime dependencies for everything except XPath (opt-in extra).
• Pure Python, >= 3.8. Lazy slicing — large documents stay cheap.

---

Installation

pip install markdown-extractor

For XPath support on to_html():

pip install markdown-extractor[xpath]

From a local checkout:

pip install -e .

---

Quick start

from markdown_extractor import MDExtractor

md = """
# Section 1
Some content here.

- **Lightweight** — small footprint.
- *Flexible* — extensible by design.
- `Tested` — full coverage.

## Subsection 1.1
More details.

## FAQ
- **Which versions are supported?**

    Versions 1.0 and up.
- **Where do I report bugs?**

    Open an issue on GitHub.
"""

e = MDExtractor(md)

e["Section 1"]                       # bracket access by title
e["Section 1"]["Subsection 1.1"]     # nested
e.get("Section 1", "Subsection 1.1") # multi-step (soft — see below)
e.list()                             # ['Section 1']
e[""]                                # synthetic root: the whole document

Every example below uses this same md. Load straight from disk instead:

e = MDExtractor.from_file("docs/guide.md")

---

Navigating the header tree

Strict access — [] / get_section()

e["Section 1"]                          # KeyError if missing
e.get_section("Section 1", "Sub 1.1")   # KeyError if any title is missing
"Section 1" in e

Soft access — get()

get() walks the same path but returns a null section sentinel instead of raising when something is missing. The sentinel is falsy and its renderer methods all return empty values, so chains stay safe:

e.get("Section 1", "Subsection 1.1").to_list()   # works
e.get("Nope", "Anything").to_list()              # []  — no exception
e.get("Nope").to_html()                          # ""
e.get("Nope").to_dict()                          # {'title':'', 'level':0, ...}

if not e.get("Optional Section"):
    print("section absent")

Use []/get_section() when you want missing keys to fail loudly; use get() when you want to flow through to an empty result.

Discovery

e.list()                              # immediate child titles
e["Section 1"].list()                 # children of "Section 1"
e.find("Subsection 1.1")              # every section with that title
e.walk()                              # depth-first iterator over every header
e.tree()                              # ASCII tree of the whole document

---

Reading a section's body

Every Section parses its own body lazily into a tree of blocks (paragraphs / lists / list items / code / blockquote). This view is what powers to_list, to_dict, to_html, and to_text.

s = e["Section 1"]

s.blocks       # the parsed Block tree (lazy, cached)
s.text         # raw prose, no header line, no subsections
s.body         # raw prose + nested subsections
s.content      # the full slice including the header line

Reaching a single block — block() and text_plain

When you've isolated a single piece of text inside the block tree, Block.text_plain strips the inline Markdown markers so you don't have to round-trip through to_text():

s.blocks[1].children[1].text          # '*Flexible* — extensible by design.'
s.blocks[1].children[1].text_plain    # 'Flexible — extensible by design.'

block.text is kept raw on purpose — to_dict() / to_json() is a lossless round-trip of the source. text_plain is the on-demand plain-text view.

For chains that might break (a missing list item, an empty section), use Section.block(*indices) and Block.get(*indices). These return a null Block on out-of-range indices instead of raising IndexError — so the chain stays safe end-to-end:

s.block(1, 1).text_plain            # 'Flexible — extensible by design.'
s.block(99, 99).text_plain          # ''  — no exception

# Equivalent two-step form (block() walks .blocks; .get() walks .children):
s.block(1).get(1).text_plain

bool(s.block(99))                   # False — null sentinel

section.blocks[i] / block.children[j] keep raising IndexError on out-of-range — strict access stays strict. Use block() / .get() only when you want soft fall-through.

to_list() — flatten body to strings

One entry per top-level block. Lists expand to one entry per top-level item; text is preserved raw (use text_plain per-item if you want markers stripped):

s.to_list()
# ['Some content here.',
#  '**Lightweight** — small footprint.',
#  '*Flexible* — extensible by design.',
#  '`Tested` — full coverage.']

to_dict() / to_json() — full structured output

Header subsections live under children; the body block tree lives under blocks. Indented continuation paragraphs under a bullet (FAQ-style) are attached as that bullet's children:

e["Section 1"]["FAQ"].to_dict()
# {
#   "title": "FAQ",
#   "level": 2,
#   "text": "...",
#   "blocks": [
#     {"kind": "list", "text": "", "children": [
#       {"kind": "list_item",
#        "text": "**Which versions are supported?**",
#        "children": [
#          {"kind": "paragraph", "text": "Versions 1.0 and up."}
#        ]},
#       {"kind": "list_item",
#        "text": "**Where do I report bugs?**",
#        "children": [
#          {"kind": "paragraph", "text": "Open an issue on GitHub."}
#        ]}
#     ]}
#   ],
#   "children": []
# }

e["Section 1"]["FAQ"].to_json(indent=2)

to_text() — Markdown stripped

Inline markers (**bold**, *em*, `code`, [link](url), ![alt](url)) are reduced to their visible text. Bullets become - lines, ordered items become 1. , nested children indent four spaces, and fenced code is kept verbatim:

print(s.to_text())
# Some content here.
#
# - Lightweight — small footprint.
# - Flexible — extensible by design.
# - Tested — full coverage.

to_html() — render to HTML, optionally filter with XPath

s.to_html()
# <p>Some content here.</p>
# <ul>
# <li><strong>Lightweight</strong> — small footprint.</li>
# <li><em>Flexible</em> — extensible by design.</li>
# <li><code>Tested</code> — full coverage.</li>
# </ul>

s.to_html(xpath=".//ul/li")
# ['<li><strong>Lightweight</strong> — small footprint.</li>',
#  '<li><em>Flexible</em> — extensible by design.</li>',
#  '<li><code>Tested</code> — full coverage.</li>']

s.to_html(xpath=".//strong")
# ['<strong>Lightweight</strong>']

Getting just the text value

When you want the data inside the matched elements rather than the markup, you have two options:

1. as_text=True — flatten each match to its text content, including text nested inside inline tags (<strong>, <em>, <code>, …):

s.to_html(xpath=".//ul/li", as_text=True)
# ['Lightweight — small footprint.',
#  'Flexible — extensible by design.',
#  'Tested — full coverage.']

s.to_html(xpath=".//ul/li[1]", as_text=True)
# ['Lightweight — small footprint.']

2. /text() in the XPath itself — works without the as_text flag, but only collects direct text nodes. Text wrapped in inline tags is skipped:

s.to_html(xpath=".//ul/li/text()")
# [' — small footprint.',
#  ' — extensible by design.',
#  ' — full coverage.']
# Note: 'Lightweight' / 'Flexible' / 'Tested' are missing — they sit
# inside <strong>/<em>/<code>, which /text() doesn't enter.

Use as_text=True when items contain inline formatting; use /text() when you specifically want only the loose text and not the wrapped content.

XPath uses lxml and is opt-in via the [xpath] extra:

pip install markdown-extractor[xpath]

Without lxml, plain to_html() still works — only to_html(xpath=...) raises ModuleNotFoundError with the install hint.

---

Robust extraction

The header parser walks the document with full block-context awareness, so a stray # is never mistaken for a header.

Block	Example	Behaviour
Fenced code	``` … ``` (or ~~~)	Headers inside are ignored
Math block	$$ … $$	Headers inside are ignored
Tables	| col | col | rows	Cell contents are ignored
YAML front matter	--- at line 1, closes on ---/...	Whole block is ignored

---
title: My Doc
# not a real header
---

# Real Header

```python
# also not a header

$$

definitely not a header

$$

```python
MDExtractor(md).list()  # ['Real Header']

ATX headers (# … ######) and Setext underlines (=== / ---) are both recognised. Skip-level jumps (h1 → h3 → h2) are handled gracefully. Any leading whitespace is allowed before a header.

---

Slices for any granularity

Each Section exposes three text views:

Property	Includes header line?	Includes child sections?
content	yes	yes
body	no	yes
text	no	no — own prose only

---

API reference

MDExtractor

Member	Description
MDExtractor(markdown)	Parse a string.
MDExtractor.from_file(path, encoding="utf-8")	Read & parse a file.
e[""] / e.root	Synthetic root section (whole document).
e["Title"] / e[i]	Top-level child by title or index.
"Title" in e	Membership test.
iter(e) / len(e)	Iterate top-level children / count them.
.list()	Top-level header titles.
.get_section(*path)	Strict multi-step descent (raises).
.get(*path)	Soft multi-step descent (null sentinel on miss).
.find(title)	All sections (any depth) with that title.
.walk() / .headers()	Depth-first iterator / list of every header.
.tree()	ASCII tree of the document's header structure.
.to_list()	Body flattened to strings (proxies to root).
.to_dict() / .to_json(**kw)	Serialise the tree (with body blocks).
.to_text()	Body rendered as plain text.
.to_html(xpath=None, as_text=False)	Body rendered as HTML, optionally XPath-filtered (as_text=True returns text values).
.block(*indices)	Soft index into root's body block tree (null Block on miss).
.content	Original Markdown source.

Section

Member	Description
.title / .level	Header text and depth (1–6, or 0 for root).
.parent / .children	Tree links.
.path	Title chain from top-level ancestor down to this node.
.content / .body / .text	Raw text views (see table above).
.blocks	Lazy-parsed body block tree.
section["Title"] / section[i]	Child by title or index (strict).
section.get(*path)	Soft multi-step descent (null sentinel on miss).
section.get_section(*path)	Strict multi-step descent.
"Title" in section	Membership test.
iter(section) / len(section)	Iterate / count direct children.
bool(section)	False only for the null sentinel returned by get().
.list()	Direct child titles.
.find(title)	Recursive search.
.walk()	Depth-first iterator over self + descendants.
.to_list()	Body flattened to one string per top-level block / item.
.to_dict()	Nested dict — blocks (body) and children (header subsections).
.to_json(**kw)	json.dumps of to_dict().
.to_text()	Body rendered as plain text (Markdown markers stripped).
.to_html(xpath=None, as_text=False)	Body rendered as HTML, optionally XPath-filtered (as_text=True returns text values).
.block(*indices)	Soft index walk into the body block tree (null Block on miss).
.tree()	ASCII tree of this subsection.
str(section)	Same as .content.

Block

A node in the body block tree.

Member	Description
.kind	One of paragraph, list, ordered_list, list_item, code, blockquote.
.text	The block's own text — raw, with inline Markdown markers preserved.
.text_plain	.text with inline markers stripped (**bold** → bold, [t](u) → t, …).
.children	Nested blocks (list items, sub-lists, indented paragraphs).
.info	Code-fence language, e.g. "python".
.get(*indices)	Soft index walk into .children (null Block on miss). Chainable.
bool(block)	False only for the null sentinel returned by get() / Section.block().
.walk()	Yield this block and every descendant.
.to_dict()	JSON-friendly nested dict.

---

Development

pip install -e .[dev]
pytest

---

License

See LICENSE.