pygixml 0.10.0

High-performance Cython XML parser for Python — pugixml with a Pythonic API

pygixml

A high-performance XML parser for Python based on Cython and pugixml. Fast parsing, full XPath 1.0 support, and a clean Pythonic API for reading, writing, and transforming XML.

📚 View Full Documentation

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Why pygixml?

Speed, memory, and size. pygixml brings pugixml's battle-tested C++ parser directly to Python — with numbers that speak for themselves.

Parsing Performance (5 000 elements, 50 iterations)

Library	Avg Time	Speedup vs ElementTree
pygixml	0.0009 s	9.2× faster
lxml	0.0041 s	2.0× faster
ElementTree	0.0083 s	1.0× (baseline)

Memory Usage (5 000 elements, peak)

Library	Peak Memory	vs ElementTree
pygixml	0.67 MB	7.2× less
lxml	0.67 MB	7.2× less
ElementTree	4.84 MB	1.0×

Package Size

Library	Installed Size	vs lxml
pygixml	0.43 MB	12.7× smaller
lxml	5.48 MB	1.0×

All numbers from benchmarks/full_benchmark.py. See the Performance page for the full comparison across 6 XML sizes.

Features

• Blazing-fast parsing — up to 14× faster than ElementTree
• Low memory — 7× less than ElementTree, on par with lxml
• Tiny footprint — 0.43 MB installed (12.7× smaller than lxml)
• Full XPath 1.0 — complete query engine with all standard functions
• Pythonic API — intuitive properties and methods, not a direct C++ mirror
• Cross-platform — Windows, Linux, macOS
• Text extraction — recursive text gathering with configurable joins
• XML serialization — output with custom indentation
• Node iteration — depth-first traversal of the entire document

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Installation

# From PyPI
pip install pygixml

# Or from GitHub
pip install git+https://github.com/MohammadRaziei/pygixml.git

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Quick Start

import pygixml

# Parse XML from string
xml = """
<library>
    <book id="1" category="fiction">
        <title>The Great Gatsby</title>
        <author>F. Scott Fitzgerald</author>
        <year>1925</year>
    </book>
    <book id="2" category="fiction">
        <title>1984</title>
        <author>George Orwell</author>
        <year>1949</year>
    </book>
</library>
"""

doc = pygixml.parse_string(xml)
root = doc.root                           # <library>

# Access children and attributes
book = root.child("book")
print(book.name)                          # book
print(book.attribute("id").value)         # 1
print(book.child("title").text())         # The Great Gatsby

# XPath queries
fiction = root.select_nodes("book[@category='fiction']")
print(f"Found {len(fiction)} fiction books")

# Create & save
doc = pygixml.XMLDocument()
root = doc.append_child("catalog")
root.append_child("item").set_value("Hello")
doc.save_file("output.xml")

Properties vs Methods

A quick reference so you don't get tripped up:

Properties (no ())	Methods (need ())
node.name, node.value, node.type	node.child(name)
node.parent, node.next_sibling	node.first_child()
node.xml, node.xpath	node.append_child(name)
attr.name, attr.value	node.set_value(v)
doc.root	node.select_nodes(query)
	node.first_attribute()
	node.text()

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Advanced Features

Text Content Extraction

import pygixml

xml = """
<root>
    <simple>Hello World</simple>
    <nested>
        <child>Child Text</child>
        More text
    </nested>
    <mixed>Text <b>with</b> mixed <i>content</i></mixed>
</root>
"""

doc = pygixml.parse_string(xml)
root = doc.root

# Direct text content of a child element
print(root.child("simple").text())                # Hello World

# Recursive text content (all descendant text joined)
nested = root.child("nested")
print(nested.text())                              # Child Text\nMore text
print(nested.text(join=" | "))                    # Child Text | More text

# Direct text only (non-recursive — immediate text children)
mixed = root.child("mixed")
print(mixed.text(recursive=False))                # Text

XML Serialization

import pygixml

doc = pygixml.XMLDocument()
root = doc.append_child("root")
root.append_child("item").set_value("content")

# Convenience property
print(root.xml)
# <root>
#   <item>content</item>
# </root>

# Custom indentation
print(root.to_string("    "))

Document Iteration

import pygixml

doc = pygixml.parse_string("<root><a/><b/></root>")

# Depth-first traversal of every node
for node in doc:
    print(f"{node.type:12s} {node.name}")
# document
# element       root
# element       a
# element       b

Node Identity

import pygixml

doc = pygixml.parse_string("<root><a/><b/></root>")
root = doc.root

a = root.child("a")
a2 = root.child("a")
print(a == a2)          # True — same underlying node
print(a.mem_id)         # Memory address for debugging

Modifying XML

import pygixml

doc = pygixml.parse_string("<person><name>John</name></person>")
root = doc.root

# Change text content
root.child("name").set_value("Jane")

# Rename an element
root.child("name").name = "full_name"

# Add children
root.append_child("age").set_value("30")

print(root.xml)
# <person>
#   <full_name>Jane</full_name>
#   <age>30</age>
# </person>

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XPath Support

Full XPath 1.0 via pugixml's engine:

import pygixml

xml = """
<library>
    <book id="1" category="fiction">
        <title>The Great Gatsby</title>
        <author>F. Scott Fitzgerald</author>
        <year>1925</year>
        <price>12.99</price>
    </book>
    <book id="2" category="fiction">
        <title>1984</title>
        <author>George Orwell</author>
        <year>1949</year>
        <price>10.99</price>
    </book>
</library>
"""

doc = pygixml.parse_string(xml)
root = doc.root

# Select nodes
books = root.select_nodes("book")
print(f"Found {len(books)} books")

# Predicates
fiction = root.select_nodes("book[@category='fiction']")
print(f"Found {len(fiction)} fiction books")

# Single node
book = root.select_node("book[@id='2']")
if book:
    print(book.node.child("title").text())    # 1984

# Pre-compiled XPathQuery for repeated use
query = pygixml.XPathQuery("book[year > 1930]")
recent = query.evaluate_node_set(root)
print(f"Found {len(recent)} books published after 1930")

# Scalar evaluations
avg = pygixml.XPathQuery("sum(book/price) div count(book)").evaluate_number(root)
print(f"Average price: ${avg:.2f}")           # Average price: $11.99

has_orwell = pygixml.XPathQuery("book[author='George Orwell']").evaluate_boolean(root)
print(f"Has Orwell books: {has_orwell}")       # Has Orwell books: True

Supported XPath

Category	Examples
Node selection	//book, /library/book, book[1]
Attributes	book[@id], book[@category='fiction']
Boolean ops	and, or, not()
Comparisons	=, !=, <, >, <=, >=
Math	+, -, *, div, mod
Functions	position(), last(), count(), sum(), string(), number()
Axes	child::, attribute::, descendant::, ancestor::
Wildcards	*, @*, node()

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Core API

Class	Purpose
XMLDocument	Document-level operations: load, save, append-child
XMLNode	Navigate, read, and modify individual nodes
XMLAttribute	Attribute name and value access
XPathQuery	Pre-compiled XPath queries for repeated evaluation
XPathNode	Single XPath result (wraps a node or attribute)
XPathNodeSet	Collection of XPath results

Module-level functions: parse_string(xml), parse_file(path).

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Important: Element Nodes vs Text Nodes

In pugixml (and therefore pygixml), element nodes do not store text as a value. They contain child text nodes instead.

# ❌  Setting value on an element node does nothing useful:
element.value = "some text"

# ✅  To SET text, append a text node (empty name) and set its value:
text_node = element.append_child("")
text_node.value = "some text"

# ✅  To GET text, use .text():
print(element.text())                     # "some text"

# ✅  Or read the text node directly:
print(element.first_child().value)        # "some text"

For most use-cases, element.text() is all you need.

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Benchmarks

Run the full benchmark suite on your machine:

# Full suite: parsing (6 sizes), memory (3 sizes), package size
python benchmarks/full_benchmark.py

# Legacy parsing-only benchmark
python benchmarks/benchmark_parsing.py

Compares pygixml against lxml and xml.etree.ElementTree. Results are printed as tables and saved to benchmarks/results/benchmark_full.json.

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Documentation

📖 Full docs: https://mohammadraziei.github.io/pygixml/

• Complete API reference
• Installation guides for all platforms
• Performance benchmarks and optimization tips
• XPath 1.0 usage guide with examples
• Real-world usage scenarios

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License

MIT License — see LICENSE.

Enjoy pygixml? Star the repository to support the development: 👉 Star pygixml on GitHub

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Acknowledgments

• pugixml — Fast and lightweight C++ XML library
• Cython — C extensions for Python
• scikit-build — Modern Python build system