wkb-wkt-converter 0.3.0

High-performance streaming converter between WKT and WKB geometry formats

wkb_wkt_converter

A high-performance, zero-dependency Rust library for streaming conversion between WKT/EWKT and WKB/EWKB geometry formats used in GIS systems (PostGIS, GDAL, etc.).

Exposes both a Rust API and Python bindings (via PyO3/maturin).

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Features

• All 7 OGC geometry types: Point, LineString, Polygon, MultiPoint, MultiLineString, MultiPolygon, GeometryCollection
• All coordinate dimensions: XY, XYZ, M, ZM
• Both EWKB (PostGIS flag-bit encoding) and ISO WKB (type+1000 offset encoding) as input
• SRID preservation (EWKT ↔ EWKB); option to split SRID from geometry
• Big-endian and little-endian WKB input; little-endian EWKB output
• EMPTY geometry support
• Per-member EMPTY support inside MULTI* geometries
• Hex WKB convenience helpers
• Memory-safe handling for malformed input: structurally invalid input returns descriptive errors, while trusted-valid fast paths may pass through malformed geometry bodies as invalid output bytes/text.

Conversion strategy

WKB → WKT is a straightforward streaming read. WKT → WKB uses a seekable-buffer approach: count fields (ring count, point count, etc.) are written as 0 placeholders and patched in-place after the coordinates are streamed, avoiding a two-pass scan of the input.

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Rust API

Add to Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
wkb_wkt_converter = { path = "wkb_wkt_converter" }

Functions

// WKB/EWKB → WKT/EWKT, with SRID output control
pub fn wkb_to_wkt(wkb: &[u8], srid: SridMode) -> Result<String>

// WKB/EWKB → WKT, SRID returned separately (not in the string)
pub fn wkb_to_wkt_split_srid(wkb: &[u8]) -> Result<(String, Option<u32>)>

// WKT/EWKT → EWKB bytes, with SRID output control
pub fn wkt_to_wkb(wkt: &str, srid: SridMode) -> Result<Vec<u8>>

// WKT/EWKT → EWKB bytes, SRID returned separately (not in bytes)
pub fn wkt_to_wkb_split_srid(wkt: &str) -> Result<(Vec<u8>, Option<u32>)>

// WKT/EWKT → uppercase hex-encoded EWKB string, with SRID output control
pub fn wkt_to_hex_wkb(wkt: &str, srid: SridMode) -> Result<String>

// Hex-encoded WKB/EWKB → WKT/EWKT string, with SRID output control
pub fn hex_wkb_to_wkt(hex: &str, srid: SridMode) -> Result<String>

Generic converters

These functions accept either a WKT/EWKT string or a hex-encoded WKB/EWKB string and detect the format automatically (a non-empty, even-length string composed entirely of hex characters is treated as hex WKB; anything else, including odd-length all-hex text, is treated as WKT).

pub fn to_wkb(text: &str, srid: SridMode) -> Result<Vec<u8>>
pub fn to_wkt(text: &str, srid: SridMode, normalize_wkt: bool) -> Result<String>
pub fn to_hex_wkb(text: &str, srid: SridMode) -> Result<String>

SridMode controls SRID handling in the output of direct and generic converters:

Variant	Behaviour
SridMode::Auto	Mirror the input — SRID kept if present, absent if not
SridMode::Strip	Always strip the SRID from the output
SridMode::Set(n)	Always embed SRID n, overriding whatever the input contains

Validation notes:

• WKT coordinates must be finite. WKB coordinate payloads are treated as trusted-valid: all-NaN Point remains POINT EMPTY, while other NaN or infinity values may format as invalid WKT instead of raising an error.
• Direct WKB-to-WKT entry points still reject structurally invalid WKB such as truncation, unsupported type codes, excessive nesting, and trailing top-level bytes.
• For canonical little-endian Point, LineString, and Polygon EWKB hex input, to_wkb(hex, SridMode::Strip | SridMode::Set(_)) and the equivalent to_hex_wkb paths patch only the top-level header. Malformed coordinate bodies or trailing bytes in those simple fast paths can pass through as invalid output. Big-endian, ISO-dimensional, collection, and non-canonical type headers fall back to a full normalising round-trip.
• to_wkb(hex, SridMode::Auto) returns decoded bytes without WKB structure validation, and to_hex_wkb(hex, SridMode::Auto) validates and uppercases the hex text only.
• GeometryCollection dimension tags are not inherited by child geometries. An XY collection may contain heterogeneous immediate children. A Z, M, or ZM collection requires each immediate child to declare the same dimension.
• WKT and WKB parsing reject geometry nesting beyond the implementation depth limit of 128.

to_wkt accepts a normalize_wkt: bool parameter. When true, WKT input is normalised (canonical casing, spacing, coordinate formatting) via a round-trip through WKB. When false, only the SRID prefix is adjusted — no validation is performed: malformed WKT is returned without error. Leading/trailing whitespace is always trimmed regardless of this flag. Hex WKB input is always decoded to normalised WKT regardless of this flag. Odd-length all-hex input is not detected as hex WKB; with normalize_wkt=false it follows the same unvalidated WKT fast path.

Example

use wkb_wkt_converter::{wkt_to_wkb, wkb_to_wkt, wkt_to_wkb_split_srid, hex_wkb_to_wkt};
use wkb_wkt_converter::{to_wkt, to_hex_wkb, SridMode};

// Basic round-trip
let wkb = wkt_to_wkb("POINT (1 2)", SridMode::Auto)?;
let wkt = wkb_to_wkt(&wkb, SridMode::Auto)?;
assert_eq!(wkt, "POINT (1 2)");

// With SRID embedded
let wkb = wkt_to_wkb("SRID=4326;POINT Z (1 2 3)", SridMode::Auto)?;
let wkt = wkb_to_wkt(&wkb, SridMode::Auto)?;
assert_eq!(wkt, "SRID=4326;POINT Z (1 2 3)");

// SRID split from geometry
let (wkb, srid) = wkt_to_wkb_split_srid("SRID=4326;LINESTRING (0 0, 1 1)")?;
assert_eq!(srid, Some(4326));
// wkb contains a plain (non-EWKB) LineString

// All geometry types and dimensions work the same way
let wkb = wkt_to_wkb(
    "MULTIPOLYGON ZM (((0 0 0 1, 1 0 0 1, 1 1 0 1, 0 0 0 1)))",
    SridMode::Auto,
)?;
let wkt = wkb_to_wkt(&wkb, SridMode::Auto)?;
assert_eq!(wkt, "MULTIPOLYGON ZM (((0 0 0 1, 1 0 0 1, 1 1 0 1, 0 0 0 1)))");

// Generic converters: input format (WKT or hex WKB) detected automatically
// Normalise WKT (casing, whitespace) — SridMode::Auto mirrors the input SRID
let wkt = to_wkt("point(1 2)", SridMode::Auto, true)?;
assert_eq!(wkt, "POINT (1 2)");

// Add or override an SRID regardless of what the input contains
let hex = to_hex_wkb("POINT (1 2)", SridMode::Set(4326))?;
// hex is an EWKB string encoding SRID=4326;POINT (1 2)
let wkt = hex_wkb_to_wkt(&hex, SridMode::Strip)?;
assert_eq!(wkt, "POINT (1 2)");

// Strip the SRID without re-encoding (fast path)
let wkt = to_wkt("SRID=4326;POINT (1 2)", SridMode::Strip, false)?;
assert_eq!(wkt, "POINT (1 2)");

Error handling

All functions return Result<_, wkb_wkt_converter::Error>:

pub enum Error {
    InvalidWkt(String),
    InvalidWkb(String),
    UnsupportedGeometryType(u32),
}

---

Python API

Build and install

Requires maturin and a Rust toolchain. Wheels include PEP 561 type stubs for static type checkers and IDEs.

pip install maturin
maturin develop          # install into the current virtualenv (dev mode)
maturin build --release  # build a wheel

Functions

from wkb_wkt_converter import (
    wkb_to_wkt,
    wkb_to_wkt_split_srid,
    wkt_to_wkb,
    wkt_to_wkb_split_srid,
    wkt_to_hex_wkb,
    hex_wkb_to_wkt,
    # generic converters
    to_wkb,
    to_wkt,
    to_hex_wkb,
)

Function	Input	Output
wkb_to_wkt(wkb, srid=None)	bytes-like WKB/EWKB	str
wkb_to_wkt_split_srid(wkb)	bytes-like WKB/EWKB	(str, int | None)
wkt_to_wkb(wkt, srid=None)	str	bytes
wkt_to_wkb_split_srid(wkt)	str	(bytes, int | None)
wkt_to_hex_wkb(wkt, srid=None)	str	str
hex_wkb_to_wkt(hex_wkb, srid=None)	str	str

WKB arguments in the Python API accept bytes, bytearray, memoryview, and other C-contiguous one-byte buffer objects. They are always treated as raw WKB/EWKB, not as encoded text.

For performance, bytes-like WKB inputs may be borrowed directly without copying. Do not mutate a writable buffer while wkb_to_wkt or wkb_to_wkt_split_srid is reading it, including from native code, another thread, or shared memory. Mutating the buffer during conversion is unsupported and may produce invalid or inconsistent results.

All functions above raise ValueError on invalid geometry input. The bytes-like WKB functions raise BufferError when the Python object does not provide a C-contiguous one-byte buffer. (See to_wkt below for an exception when normalize_wkt=False.)

Generic converters

These three functions accept either a WKT/EWKT string or a hex-encoded WKB/EWKB string and detect the format automatically. A non-empty, even-length string composed entirely of hex characters is treated as hex WKB; anything else, including odd-length all-hex text, is treated as WKT.

Function	Output
to_wkb(text, srid=None)	bytes
to_wkt(text, srid=None, normalize_wkt=False)	str
to_hex_wkb(text, srid=None)	str

The srid keyword argument on direct and generic converters controls SRID handling in the output:

Value	Behaviour
None (default)	Mirror the input — SRID kept if present, absent if not
False	Always strip the SRID from the output
int	Always embed this SRID, overriding whatever the input contains

Validation behavior matches the Rust API: WKT coordinates must be finite, while WKB coordinate payloads are treated as trusted-valid. Simple little-endian EWKB hex inputs under srid=False or an integer SRID are patched at the top-level header without scanning the body, so malformed bodies or trailing bytes can pass through as invalid output. to_wkb(hex, srid=None) returns decoded bytes without WKB structure validation, and to_hex_wkb(hex, srid=None) validates and uppercases the hex text only.

to_wkt accepts a normalize_wkt keyword argument (default False). When True, WKT input is normalised (canonical casing, spacing, coordinate formatting) via a round-trip through WKB. When False (the default), only the SRID prefix is adjusted — no validation is performed: malformed WKT is returned without raising an error. Leading/trailing whitespace is always stripped regardless of this flag. Hex WKB input is always decoded to normalised WKT regardless of this flag. Odd-length all-hex input is not detected as hex WKB; with normalize_wkt=False it follows the same unvalidated WKT fast path.

Example

from wkb_wkt_converter import wkt_to_wkb, wkb_to_wkt, wkt_to_hex_wkb, hex_wkb_to_wkt
from wkb_wkt_converter import to_wkt, to_hex_wkb

wkb = wkt_to_wkb("POINT (1 2)")
wkt = wkb_to_wkt(wkb)
assert wkt == "POINT (1 2)"

# EWKT with SRID
wkb = wkt_to_wkb("SRID=4326;POLYGON ((0 0, 1 0, 1 1, 0 0))")
wkt = wkb_to_wkt(wkb)
assert wkt == "SRID=4326;POLYGON ((0 0, 1 0, 1 1, 0 0))"

# Hex WKB (common PostGIS text format)
hex_wkb = wkt_to_hex_wkb("POINT (1 2)")
wkt = hex_wkb_to_wkt(hex_wkb)
assert wkt == "POINT (1 2)"

srid_hex_wkb = wkt_to_hex_wkb("SRID=4326;POINT (1 2)")
wkt = hex_wkb_to_wkt(srid_hex_wkb, srid=False)
assert wkt == "POINT (1 2)"

# Generic converters: input format detected automatically
wkt = to_wkt("point(1 2)", normalize_wkt=True)  # normalise WKT
assert wkt == "POINT (1 2)"

wkt = to_wkt(hex_wkb)                           # hex WKB → WKT (always normalised)
assert wkt == "POINT (1 2)"

hex_out = to_hex_wkb("POINT (1 2)", srid=4326)  # add SRID
wkt = to_wkt(hex_out)
assert wkt == "SRID=4326;POINT (1 2)"

wkt = to_wkt("SRID=4326;POINT (1 2)", srid=False)  # strip SRID (fast path)
assert wkt == "POINT (1 2)"

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Benchmarks

Comparison against shapely 2.x. Regenerate with:

pip install ".[benchmark]"
python scripts/update_readme_benchmarks.py
# or, using an already-saved JSON:
python scripts/update_readme_benchmarks.py --json benchmark_results.json

For local performance history across commits, use airspeed velocity:

pip install ".[asv]"
asv check --python=same
asv run --python=same --quick --show-stderr --dry-run
asv run HEAD^! --quick --show-stderr --dry-run
asv run main..HEAD --skip-existing-commits --show-stderr
asv run ALL --skip-existing-commits --show-stderr
asv publish
asv preview
asv compare main HEAD --split

2026-05-05 — Python 3.12.3 — 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700KF

Times are mean latency per call (lower is better). Speedup = shapely mean ÷ wkb_wkt_converter mean.

Basic conversions

wkt_to_wkb

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	140 ns	5.2 µs	37.3×
LineString (5 pts)	233 ns	6.2 µs	26.7×
Polygon (5 pts)	247 ns	6.2 µs	25.2×
GeometryCollection	387 ns	8.3 µs	21.5×
MultiPolygon	533 ns	9.9 µs	18.6×
LineString (1000 pts)	23.3 µs	209.1 µs	9.0×
Polygon (1000 pts)	40.7 µs	444.0 µs	10.9×

wkb_to_wkt

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	148 ns	3.9 µs	26.3×
LineString (5 pts)	240 ns	4.4 µs	18.3×
Polygon (5 pts)	140 ns	4.4 µs	31.2×
GeometryCollection	213 ns	5.1 µs	24.0×
MultiPolygon	667 ns	6.9 µs	10.3×
LineString (1000 pts)	38.9 µs	118.2 µs	3.0×
Polygon (1000 pts)	118.3 µs	140.8 µs	1.2×

wkt_to_hex_wkb

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	164 ns	5.2 µs	31.6×
LineString (5 pts)	337 ns	6.4 µs	19.0×
Polygon (5 pts)	365 ns	6.4 µs	17.6×
GeometryCollection	494 ns	8.7 µs	17.5×
MultiPolygon	847 ns	9.8 µs	11.6×
LineString (1000 pts)	36.8 µs	230.0 µs	6.2×
Polygon (1000 pts)	54.5 µs	456.0 µs	8.4×

hex_wkb_to_wkt

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	188 ns	4.0 µs	21.3×
LineString (5 pts)	331 ns	4.6 µs	13.9×
Polygon (5 pts)	219 ns	4.6 µs	21.1×
GeometryCollection	352 ns	5.6 µs	15.8×
MultiPolygon	854 ns	6.8 µs	8.0×
LineString (1000 pts)	47.2 µs	133.3 µs	2.8×
Polygon (1000 pts)	126.7 µs	156.0 µs	1.2×

Generic to_* converters

to_wkb(wkt)

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	146 ns	5.4 µs	36.8×
LineString (5 pts)	241 ns	6.7 µs	27.7×
Polygon (5 pts)	273 ns	6.5 µs	23.9×
GeometryCollection	391 ns	8.5 µs	21.6×
MultiPolygon	565 ns	9.6 µs	17.0×
LineString (1000 pts)	24.0 µs	215.0 µs	9.0×
Polygon (1000 pts)	41.2 µs	452.8 µs	11.0×

to_wkb(hex_wkb)

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	79 ns	4.5 µs	57.4×
LineString (5 pts)	116 ns	4.8 µs	41.6×
Polygon (5 pts)	117 ns	4.7 µs	40.4×
GeometryCollection	160 ns	5.3 µs	33.2×
MultiPolygon	215 ns	5.9 µs	27.7×
LineString (1000 pts)	7.2 µs	42.8 µs	5.9×
Polygon (1000 pts)	7.2 µs	43.3 µs	6.0×

to_wkt(wkt) — normalize_wkt=False (fast path, no WKB round-trip)

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	62 ns	4.8 µs	76.8×
LineString (5 pts)	60 ns	6.1 µs	101.3×
Polygon (5 pts)	61 ns	6.1 µs	100.2×
GeometryCollection	65 ns	8.4 µs	129.9×
MultiPolygon	66 ns	10.6 µs	160.0×
LineString (1000 pts)	521 ns	306.5 µs	588.0×
Polygon (1000 pts)	2.1 µs	547.8 µs	267.2×

to_wkt(wkt) — normalize_wkt=True (full WKT→WKB→WKT round-trip)

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	346 ns	4.8 µs	13.8×
LineString (5 pts)	550 ns	6.1 µs	11.1×
Polygon (5 pts)	458 ns	6.1 µs	13.3×
GeometryCollection	685 ns	8.4 µs	12.3×
MultiPolygon	1.3 µs	10.6 µs	8.1×
LineString (1000 pts)	62.9 µs	306.5 µs	4.9×
Polygon (1000 pts)	162.3 µs	547.8 µs	3.4×

to_wkt(hex_wkb)

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	195 ns	4.1 µs	21.1×
LineString (5 pts)	349 ns	4.6 µs	13.2×
Polygon (5 pts)	231 ns	4.7 µs	20.1×
GeometryCollection	359 ns	5.5 µs	15.4×
MultiPolygon	873 ns	6.7 µs	7.7×
LineString (1000 pts)	46.8 µs	132.5 µs	2.8×
Polygon (1000 pts)	126.9 µs	155.2 µs	1.2×

to_hex_wkb(wkt)

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	177 ns	5.4 µs	30.4×
LineString (5 pts)	350 ns	6.4 µs	18.3×
Polygon (5 pts)	375 ns	6.8 µs	18.3×
GeometryCollection	524 ns	8.7 µs	16.6×
MultiPolygon	869 ns	9.8 µs	11.3×
LineString (1000 pts)	37.3 µs	228.1 µs	6.1×
Polygon (1000 pts)	54.7 µs	463.0 µs	8.5×

to_hex_wkb(hex_wkb)

Geometry	wkb_wkt_converter	shapely	Speedup
Point	86 ns	4.5 µs	52.6×
LineString (5 pts)	169 ns	4.9 µs	29.1×
Polygon (5 pts)	174 ns	4.9 µs	28.5×
GeometryCollection	238 ns	5.5 µs	23.0×
MultiPolygon	366 ns	6.2 µs	17.0×
LineString (1000 pts)	14.8 µs	56.7 µs	3.8×
Polygon (1000 pts)	15.1 µs	58.1 µs	3.8×

---

Project layout

wkb_wkt_converter/          # core Rust library (zero runtime dependencies)
  src/
    lib.rs                  # public API
    error.rs
    types.rs                # GeomType, Dimension
    wkb_to_wkt/             # WKB reader + WKT builder
    wkt_to_wkb/             # WKT tokenizer + seekable WKB writer
  tests/
    wkb_to_wkt.rs
    wkt_to_wkb.rs
    generic_converters.rs

wkb_wkt_converter_py/       # Python bindings (PyO3 / maturin)
  src/lib.rs

pyproject.toml              # maturin build config

---

Running tests

cargo test                  # run all Rust tests
cargo clippy -- -D warnings # lints
cargo fmt --check           # formatting