xml_iterator

Streaming XML for Python. Primary goal: defeat the infinite depth attack on large dumps where useful records sit under outer elements that stay open until late/EOF — a tree/DOM consumer either waits for those outers or holds the whole open tree.

<root>                              ← opens near start
  <Payload>
    <RefData>                       ← open for almost the whole file
      <FinInstrm> ... </FinInstrm>  ← record 1 complete (outers still open)
      <FinInstrm> ... </FinInstrm>  ← record 2
      ...
    </RefData>                      ← closes near EOF
  </Payload>
</root>

Protection is streaming under open wrappers plus user discard / early stop — not max_depth on a full-document dict. Process each record on its end event, drop it, and break after K records. Memory stays bounded only if finished work is discarded.

Threat model / landscape: backlog/docs/streaming-memory-model-and-landscape.md.

Install

PyPI — package xml-iterator, import xml_iterator.

pip install xml-iterator
# or: uv pip install xml-iterator

From a clone: make develop (release extension; needed for honest benches/tests).

Benchmarks

Release builds only (make develop / make build). Debug extensions are ~9× slower.

Numbers: 2026-07-17. Source of truth: benchmark_data/benchmark_results.json (regenerate this section with make readme-benchmarks). Narrative: PERF_2026-07-17.md.

Full-document dict — xml_to_dict vs xmltodict.parse

Same output shape on synthetic / SwissProt (attributes included; namespace prefixes stripped). Full-file tree build — fine for modest docs / parity; streaming is the large-file path.

Synthetic

Elements	Size	xml_iterator	xmltodict	Speedup
500	0.2 MB	0.007s	0.036s	5.5×
2,000	0.7 MB	0.032s	0.136s	4.2×
5,000	1.8 MB	0.069s	0.229s	3.3×

Real files

Dataset	Size	xml_iterator	xmltodict	Speedup	Notes
SwissProt	110 MB	2.573s	13.342s	5.19×	results identical
ESMA FIRDS	441 MB	8.451s	54.379s	6.43×	results differ (shape)

Early stream exit (stop after 100,000 events on a 50,000-item file): 0.028s vs full xml_to_dict 0.345s (~12×). Any streaming parser gets this; not unique to this library.

Stream backends — same event profile

Comparators in xml_iterator.comparators: xml_iterator, et_iterparse, sax, lxml_iterparse. All yield (count, event, value). make benchmark / make benchmark-all time every backend (or record an explicit skip).

Policy (one stream table per file): full multi-backend drain if size ≤150 MB (e.g. SwissProt); else early exit first 1,000,000 events only (e.g. FIRDS). No redundant early+full on the same file. SAX is N/A for early exit (adapter materializes full parse first). SAX full drain skipped above 20 MB (RAM), not a capability gap.

Synthetic — 20,000 books, full drain (7.1 MB, 500,002 events)

Backend	Time	Events	Rate	vs xml_iterator
xml_iterator	0.200s	500,002	2.5M/s	1.00×
lxml_iterparse	0.466s	500,002	1.1M/s	2.33× slower
sax	0.813s	500,002	615k/s	4.06× slower
et_iterparse	1.036s	500,002	482k/s	5.18× slower

SwissProt — full drain (110 MB, 7,967,906 events)

Backend	Time	Events	Rate	vs xml_iterator
xml_iterator	2.088s	7,967,906	3.8M/s	1.00×
lxml_iterparse	5.563s	7,967,906	1.4M/s	2.66× slower
et_iterparse	7.496s	7,967,906	1.1M/s	3.59× slower
sax	skipped	—	—	skipped full drain >20MB (adapter buffers all events; RAM)

ESMA FIRDS — early exit first 1,000,000 events (441 MB; full multi-backend drain >150 MB skipped)

Backend	Time	Events	Rate	vs xml_iterator
xml_iterator	0.245s	1,000,000	4.1M/s	1.00×
et_iterparse	0.777s	1,000,000	1.3M/s	3.17× slower
lxml_iterparse	0.872s	1,000,000	1.1M/s	3.56× slower
sax	skipped	—	—	N/A early-exit (SAX adapter materializes full parse first)

Reproduce

make benchmark          # synthetic dict + stream + early-exit → JSON
make benchmark-all      # SwissProt + FIRDS → JSON
make show-benchmarks    # pretty-print last JSON (no rebuild)
make readme-benchmarks  # rewrite this section from JSON (no re-run)

Makefile installs .[bench] (xmltodict, lxml) and a release extension first. Committed snapshot: benchmark_data/benchmark_results.json.

Usage

from xml_iterator.xml_iterator import iter_xml
from xml_iterator.core import xml_to_dict  # xml_iterator.xml_to_dict

# Streaming: records under open wrappers
records = 0
for count, event, value in iter_xml('file.xml'):
    if event == 'end' and value == 'FinInstrm':
        records += 1
        # handle; discard — do not accumulate under open parents
        if records >= 1000:
            break

# Full document dict — modest files / xmltodict parity only
data = xml_to_dict('small.xml')

Also: get_edge_counts(path), opt-in attrs via iter_xml(path, attributes=True). Example: examples/firds_shape_stream.py. Sample event dump: examples/simple.xml + examples/example_xml_iter.py.

Limits: file paths only (no pipes); namespace prefixes stripped; full-file xml_iterator.xml_to_dict is not the multi-GB path.

When to use something else: stdlib ET.iterparse + clear(), bigxml, or xmltodict item_depth callbacks — see landscape doc above.

Develop

make develop          # release extension (default)
make develop-debug    # debug build (~9× slower)
pytest                # after: uv pip install -e ".[test]"

Changelog: CHANGELOG.md.

Release (one script → tag → CI → PyPI)

Package version lives only in Cargo.toml (pyproject is dynamic). A git tag v* must match that version or CI uploads the wrong / already-published wheel.

# dry-run
python scripts/release.py patch --dry-run

# bump patch, edit Cargo + CHANGELOG, commit, annotated tag (local)
make release-patch
# or: python scripts/release.py patch -m "what changed" -m "another note"

# same + push main and tag → CI tests + maturin upload to PyPI
make release-push BUMP=patch
# or: python scripts/release.py 0.3.0 --push --gh-release

gh run watch   # wait for tag Release job

CI: .github/workflows/CI.yml (PYPI_API_TOKEN secret).
PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/xml-iterator/ · Releases: https://github.com/cottrell/xml_iterator/releases