Unxml

Simplify and "flatten" XML files into a YAML-like readable format.

This is a Rust clone of the original unxml F# tool.

See it in action → — a gallery of real-world XML documents, schemas, stylesheets, and Schematron rules rendered with unxml, with original-vs-rendered size comparisons.

Installation

Using uv (Easiest)

Install the published wheel from PyPI as a standalone tool:

uv tool install unxml-rs

This puts the unxml command on your PATH. To try it without installing anything:

uvx --from unxml-rs unxml <xml_file>

Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

Download the latest release for your platform from the GitHub Releases page:

• Linux (x86_64): unxml-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
• Windows (x86_64): unxml-windows-x86_64.zip
• macOS (Intel): unxml-macos-x86_64.tar.gz
• macOS (Apple Silicon): unxml-macos-arm64.tar.gz

Extract the archive and place the unxml binary in your PATH.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/unxml-rs
cd unxml-rs
cargo install --path .

Using Cargo

cargo install unxml

Usage

unxml <xml_file>

By default files render as plain XML. Pass --auto to pick the processing mode from each file's extension:

An explicit mode flag (--xslt, --schematron, --xsd, --msbuild, --special) always overrides autodetection.

For a tour of every way unxml shortens a document — base syntax plus which flag to reach for — see the simplification reference.

Each mode rewrites its vocabulary into a terser pseudocode. The full set of transformations, with side-by-side samples, is documented per format:

• XSLT transformations — xsl:* stylesheets
• XSD transformations — xs:* / xsd:* schemas
• Schematron transformations — .sch rule schemas
• MSBuild transformations — .targets/.props/project files

Syntax-highlighted output (--bat)

unxml --bat some.xsd      # implies --auto (detects --xsd), pipes through `bat -l unxml`

--bat renders the output through bat using the bundled unxml grammar (see editor/) for paged, colourised display. If bat is not installed it falls back to plain stdout. Run unxml --install-bat once to register the grammar with bat (copies it into bat's config dir and rebuilds the cache) — after that, both --bat and plain bat file.unxml are highlighted.

Claude Code skill (--install-skills)

unxml --install-skills      # writes ~/.claude/skills/unxml/SKILL.md

Installs a Claude Code skill for unxml. It doesn't auto-activate; invoke it with /unxml.

Hiding noisy namespace prefixes (--hide-ns)

Vocabularies like UBL bury the signal under repeated prefixes (cbc:, cac:). --hide-ns drops the named prefixes from element and attribute names — and their xmlns: declarations — so the output reads as bare local names:

unxml --hide-ns cbc,cac invoice.xml   # repeatable and comma-separated

Signal-carrying prefixes you don't list (e.g. ext:, bim:) are kept, so an extension subtree still stands out.

The special value --hide-ns ALL hides every prefix, reducing all element and attribute names to their bare local form. Useful when you don't know the prefixes up front — e.g. fingerprinting or clustering documents of unknown vocabularies with --paths:

unxml --paths --hide-ns ALL unknown.xml   # prefix-free structural signature

Under --auto/--bat, unxml also sniffs the document type and hides a sensible set automatically. Currently it recognises UBL instance documents (an unprefixed root such as <Invoice> in a UBL namespace) and hides whichever prefixes are bound to the Common Basic/Aggregate Components namespaces. A stylesheet or schema that merely references UBL (e.g. an xsl:stylesheet translating to UBL) is left untouched, since there the prefixes are real syntax.

Canonicalising for diffs (--canonical)

Two documents can mean the same thing yet differ byte-for-byte over things that carry no meaning: namespace prefixes are arbitrary local aliases for a URI, and sibling order is often incidental. --canonical removes both so the rendered output of equivalent documents diffs cleanly:

• Prefixes are rebound to stable names. Recognised vocabularies keep their conventional prefix (xsl, xs, cac, ram, …); everything else becomes ns1, ns2, … in sorted-URI order. A default namespace (xmlns="…") is rewritten to the same explicit prefix, so <a:Foo> and <Foo xmlns="…"> for one URI collapse to the identical name. All xmlns:* declarations are re-emitted, sorted, on the root.
• Sibling elements are sorted by a recursive signature, so order-only differences vanish. Mixed content (prose) keeps document order.

diff <(unxml --canonical a.xml) <(unxml --canonical b.xml)

Two documents differing only in prefix spelling, default-vs-explicit namespace, and sibling order produce byte-identical output:

<a:Order xmlns:a="urn:shop:order" xmlns:c="urn:shop:cust">
  <a:Line sku="X1"><a:Qty>2</a:Qty></a:Line>
  <c:Customer id="42">Acme</c:Customer>
</a:Order>

ns2:Order(xmlns:ns1="urn:shop:cust", xmlns:ns2="urn:shop:order")
  ns1:Customer(id="42") = Acme
  ns2:Line(sku="X1")
    ns2:Qty = 2

Sibling sorting applies only to plain XML. Element order is significant in stylesheets and schemas (xsl:* control flow, xs:sequence, Schematron rule order) and in MSBuild's target/property evaluation order, so in a dialect/--special mode (--xslt, --xsd, --wsdl, --schematron, --msbuild) --canonical normalises prefixes only and preserves document order.

Collapsing wrapper chains (--collapse)

Some vocabularies bury content under deep boilerplate scaffolding. UBL's ext:UBLExtensions is the canonical example: four nested wrappers that carry no information of their own before any real payload appears. --collapse folds a run of such pass-through wrappers — an element with exactly one child, no attributes, and no text of its own — onto a single parent/child/grandchild line, stopping at the first node that carries real content (an attribute, multiple children, or text):

unxml --collapse invoice.xml

ext:UBLExtensions/ext:UBLExtension/ext:ExtensionContent/sig:UBLDocumentSignatures/sig:SignatureInformation
  cbc:ID = signature-id
  cbc:ReferencedSignatureID = signature

No information is dropped: the terminal element renders normally, and a wrapper that does carry an attribute ends the chain and shows it (ext:UBLExtension(id="X1")).

With no value every pass-through wrapper folds. Pass a comma-separated list to fold only chains that start at a named element — the descent through its sub-wrappers is then automatic, so you name just the outer container:

unxml --collapse=ext:UBLExtensions invoice.xml   # join the list with =

Names match like --select (a bare UBLExtensions matches the local name, a prefixed ext:UBLExtensions matches the full name). The list must be joined to the flag with = so it is not mistaken for a file argument.

Under --auto/--bat, a sniffed UBL or CII instance folds its single-child wrapper chains automatically (the same documents that get their prefixes hidden), unless you pass an explicit --collapse. These vocabularies bury content under deep scaffolding — UBL's ext:UBLExtensions, CII's nested ram:/rsm: wrappers — and folding it trims 15–25% of the lines while leaving genuine multi-child aggregates (a Party, a PostalAddress) expanded.

This is distinct from --fold: --collapse flattens vertical wrapper noise in the full render, while --fold dedups repeated records in the --paths view. --collapse affects plain XML only — it is ignored in the dialect modes (--xslt/--xsd/--wsdl/--schematron/--msbuild/--special), where element nesting is significant, and in --paths.

Listing document paths (--paths)

--paths dumps a compact structural summary instead of the full document: the set of distinct element paths as an indented tree, each node shown once (repeated siblings collapse) and annotated with the union of attribute names ever seen at that path. A leading // legend explains the namespace prefixes (recognised vocabularies on their conventional prefix are omitted as self-explanatory):

unxml --paths invoice.xml

order(xmlns="urn:shop:order")
  customer(id)
  line(discount, sku)
    qty(unit)

Prefixed namespaces (xmlns:ext) go into a leading // legend; the default namespace (xmlns) is shown inline on the element that sets it, since several nested redefinitions would collide under one (default) legend key.

It answers "what shapes exist in this document" and is handy for understanding or comparing document shapes. It composes with --select (subtree under a match), --hide-ns (shorter segments), and --canonical (the legend resolves the generated ns1/ns2 names).

Two further knobs make --paths a fuzzable fingerprint for clustering files by structure — coarsen the signature so documents of the same format collapse together despite incidental differences:

• --depth N limits the tree to N nesting levels (root = level 1), dropping deeper subtrees. Lower N → coarser.
• --no-attrs drops ordinary attribute names from each node, keeping only namespaces. Incidental per-document attributes (schemaLocation, version, timestamps) stop fragmenting otherwise-identical formats.

Combined with --hide-ns ALL, --paths --depth 1 --no-attrs reduces each file to a single root-element + namespace line — a format census signature: run it over a directory and sort | uniq -c to see how many distinct formats are present and how many files use each. Raise --depth to cluster by finer structural variants instead.

Folding repeated leaf groups (--fold)

Documents often repeat the same small record under different names — a DATE broken into CENTURY/DAY/MONTH/… under both DUE_DATE and INVOICE_DATE, or a UBL cac:PostalAddress under several party blocks. --fold hoists each such leaf group (an element whose children are all leaves) that occurs more than once into a named @Shape defined once in a leading // shapes legend, and replaces every occurrence in the tree with a reference:

unxml --paths --fold invoice.xml

// shapes
//   @DATE = DATE { CENTURY, DAY, DECADE_AND_YEAR, MONTH }

INVOICE
  DUE_DATE
    @DATE
  INVOICE_DATE
    @DATE

Each shape definition is a single line — braces wrap the child list, while parens stay reserved for attributes (so cbc:ID(schemeID) inside a shape is still unambiguous). Only flat one-level groups fold, so definitions never nest or cross-reference each other. Shapes are named after their root element's local name (@DATE), with a numeric suffix on collision. Only affects --paths.

Introduction

This command line application was developed for comparing XML files (e.g. database/application state dumps). It takes an XML file and converts it to a YAML-like syntax that is easier to read and compare.

Example

Take an excerpt of the standard UBL 2.1 invoice example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Invoice xmlns="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2"
	xmlns:cac="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonAggregateComponents-2"
	xmlns:cbc="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonBasicComponents-2">
	<cbc:UBLVersionID>2.1</cbc:UBLVersionID>
	<cbc:ID>TOSL108</cbc:ID>
	<cbc:IssueDate>2009-12-15</cbc:IssueDate>
	<cbc:InvoiceTypeCode listID="UN/ECE 1001 Subset" listAgencyID="6">380</cbc:InvoiceTypeCode>
	<cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode listID="ISO 4217 Alpha" listAgencyID="6">EUR</cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode>
	<cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
		<cac:Party>
			<cac:PartyName>
				<cbc:Name>Salescompany ltd.</cbc:Name>
			</cac:PartyName>
			<cac:PostalAddress>
				<cbc:StreetName>Main street</cbc:StreetName>
				<cbc:CityName>Big city</cbc:CityName>
				<cbc:PostalZone>54321</cbc:PostalZone>
			</cac:PostalAddress>
		</cac:Party>
	</cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
</Invoice>

unxml invoice.xml flattens it into:

Invoice(
    xmlns="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2",
    xmlns:cac="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonAggregateComponents-2",
    xmlns:cbc="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonBasicComponents-2")
  cbc:UBLVersionID = 2.1
  cbc:ID = TOSL108
  cbc:IssueDate = 2009-12-15
  cbc:InvoiceTypeCode(listAgencyID="6", listID="UN/ECE 1001 Subset") = 380
  cbc:DocumentCurrencyCode(listAgencyID="6", listID="ISO 4217 Alpha") = EUR
  cac:AccountingSupplierParty
    cac:Party
      cac:PartyName
        cbc:Name = Salescompany ltd.
      cac:PostalAddress
        cbc:StreetName = Main street
        cbc:CityName = Big city
        cbc:PostalZone = 54321

With --auto, unxml sniffs the UBL instance and hides the noisy cbc:/cac: prefixes (along with their xmlns: declarations), leaving just the signal:

Invoice(xmlns="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2")
  UBLVersionID = 2.1
  ID = TOSL108
  IssueDate = 2009-12-15
  InvoiceTypeCode(listAgencyID="6", listID="UN/ECE 1001 Subset") = 380
  DocumentCurrencyCode(listAgencyID="6", listID="ISO 4217 Alpha") = EUR
  AccountingSupplierParty
    Party
      PartyName
        Name = Salescompany ltd.
      PostalAddress
        StreetName = Main street
        CityName = Big city
        PostalZone = 54321

Mode example: XSLT

Beyond flattening, each mode rewrites its vocabulary into terser pseudocode. A small XSLT stylesheet:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:template match="/">
  <table border="1">
    <xsl:for-each select="catalog/cd">
    <tr>
      <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
      <td><xsl:value-of select="artist"/></td>
    </tr>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </table>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

renders with unxml --xslt as:

xsl:stylesheet(version="1.0", xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform")
  match /:
    table(border="1")
      foreach catalog/cd:
        tr
          td
            <- title
          td
            <- artist

match, foreach and <- (for xsl:value-of) read like the control flow the stylesheet actually expresses. See XSLT transformations for the full vocabulary, and XSD / Schematron for the other modes.

Key Features

• Attributes in Parentheses: Element attributes are displayed Pug-style as element(attr="value")
• Text Content with Equals: Element text content is shown as ElementName = text content
• Hierarchical Indentation: Nested elements are properly indented
• Clean Format: Easy to read and compare, great for diffing
• Inline mixed content: Prose interleaved with short inline elements stays on one readable line

Mixed content (prose with inline spans)

Document-style XML interleaves text with small inline elements — a paragraph containing a <command> or a <link>. Flattening every run onto its own line makes such prose hard to read, so unxml keeps it inline as one line of verbatim XML:

<para>The <command>widget</command> daemon keeps its
  <link href="recovery.html">recoverable</link> state in one database.</para>

renders as:

para = The <command>widget</command> daemon keeps its <link href="recovery.html">recoverable</link> state in one database.

An element flows inline when its whole subtree is inline-safe — text interleaved with elements that are themselves inline-safe. A leaf with significant (multi-line) text, such as <programlisting> or <screen>, is not inline-safe, so its parent stays in the flattened block form and the listing keeps its line breaks. Nested inline markup (e.g. <emphasis> wrapping a <command>) collapses all the way up. This applies to the generic XML render; the --xslt/--xsd/--wsdl/--schematron/--msbuild modes use their own formatting.

Technical Details

• Built with Rust for performance and safety
• Uses quick-xml for fast XML parsing
• Uses clap for command-line argument parsing
• Proper error handling with anyhow

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Creating Releases

The version lives in the git tag, not in Cargo.toml (which stays at the 0.0.0-dev placeholder; the release workflow injects the real version with cargo set-version). Do not bump Cargo.toml or create tags by hand.

To cut a release, let gh create the tag:

gh release create vX.Y.Z --title "Release vX.Y.Z" --notes "…"

The pushed tag triggers the GitHub Actions workflow, which builds binaries and the PyPI wheel for all platforms and attaches them to the release.

The CI workflow runs on every push to ensure code quality with formatting checks, linting, and tests.