py-a2lfile

py-a2lfile is a Python wrapper around the Rust crate a2lfile. It provides a small, read-only API for loading and inspecting A2L files from Python while relying on the upstream Rust implementation for parsing performance and stability.

Current Capabilities

• Parse A2L content from a file path with a2lfile.load(...)
• Parse A2L content directly from a string with a2lfile.load_from_string(...)
• Inspect modules and measurements through a small, read-only Python API
• Access conversion metadata including COMPU_METHOD, COMPU_TAB, COMPU_VTAB, and COMPU_VTAB_RANGE
• Resolve references from measurements to conversion tables and engineering units
• Inspect module-level metadata such as MOD_COMMON, MOD_PAR, and unit definitions
• Traverse generic IF_DATA, including tagged structures used for XCP-oriented extraction
• Access detailed measurement metadata such as annotations, bit operations, addresses, refresh information, symbol links, and virtual channels
• Stable and fast parsing backed by the Rust a2lfile library
• Typed distribution with _a2lfile.pyi and py.typed
• Supports CPython 3.12, 3.13, and 3.14 using stable ABI (abi3) wheels

Limitations

• Parse-only API; this package does not currently provide editing or write-back support
• Intentionally small wrapper surface focused on inspection rather than full ASAP2 authoring workflows
• Free-threaded Python builds are not covered by the published abi3 wheels

Installation

pip install py-a2lfile

The package is installed from PyPI as py-a2lfile, but imported in Python as a2lfile.

Releases provide a single cp312-abi3 wheel per platform for standard CPython 3.12–3.14 on Linux x86_64, Linux aarch64, and Windows x64. Other platforms require a source build with Rust installed.

Example

import a2lfile

a2l = a2lfile.load("example.a2l")

for module in a2l.modules:
    print(module.name)
    for measurement in module.measurements:
        print(" ", measurement.name, measurement.conversion)

Development

uv sync --dev --python python3.12
uv run maturin develop --uv
uv run pytest

Acknowledgements

This package is a Python wrapper around the Rust crate a2lfile.

Credit for the underlying A2L parsing implementation belongs to the a2lfile authors and maintainers. This wrapper exists to make that parser available from Python, because a2lfile was the most capable and well-maintained A2L parser identified for this use case.

License

Licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)