Module Markup
Error-recovering streaming HTML and XML parsers and writers.
Markup.ml is an HTML and XML parsing and serialization library. It:
- Is error-recovering, so you can get a best-effort parse of malformed input.
- Reports all errors before recovery, so you can get strict parsing instead.
- Conforms closely to the XML grammar and HTML parser from the respective specifications.
- Accepts document fragments, but can be told to accept only full documents.
- Detects character encodings automatically.
- Supports both simple synchronous (this module) and non-blocking usage (
Markup_lwt
). - Is streaming and lazy. Partial input is processed as soon as received, but only as needed.
- Does one pass over the input and emits a stream of SAX-style parsing signals. A helper (
tree
) allows that to be easily converted into DOM-style trees.
The usage is straightforward. For example:
open Markup
(* Correct and pretty-print HTML. *)
channel stdin
|> parse_html |> signals |> pretty_print
|> write_html |> to_channel stdout
(* Show up to 10 XML well-formedness errors to the user. Stop after
the 10th, without reading more input. *)
let report =
let count = ref 0 in
fun location error ->
error |> Error.to_string ~location |> prerr_endline;
count := !count + 1;
if !count >= 10 then raise_notrace Exit
string "some xml" |> parse_xml ~report |> signals |> drain
(* Load HTML into a custom document tree data type. *)
type html = Text of string | Element of string * html list
file "some_file"
|> fst
|> parse_html
|> signals
|> tree
~text:(fun ss -> Text (String.concat "" ss))
~element:(fun (_, name) _ children -> Element (name, children))
The interface is centered around four functions. In pseudocode:
val parse_html : char stream -> signal stream
val write_html : signal stream -> char stream
val parse_xml : char stream -> signal stream
val write_xml : signal stream -> char stream
Most of the remaining functions create streams from, or write streams to, strings, files, and channels, or manipulate streams, such as next
and the combinators map
and fold
.
Apart from this module, Markup.ml provides two other top-level modules:
Markup_lwt
Markup_lwt_unix
Most of the interface of Markup_lwt
is specified in signature ASYNCHRONOUS
, which will be shared with a Markup_async
module, should it be implemented.
Markup.ml is developed on GitHub and distributed under the BSD license. This documentation is for version 0.8.0 of the library. Documentation for older versions can be found on the releases page.
Streams
type async
type sync
Phantom types for use with
('a, 's) stream
in place of's
. See explanation below.
type ('a, 's) stream
Streams of elements of type
'a
.In simple usage, when using only this module
Markup
, the additional type parameter's
is alwayssync
, and there is no need to consider it further.However, if you are using
Markup_lwt
, you may create someasync
streams. The difference between the two is thatnext
on async
stream retrieves an element beforenext
"returns," whilenext
on anasync
stream might not retrieve an element until later. As a result, it is not safe to pass anasync
stream where async
stream is required. The phantom types are used to make the type checker catch such errors at compile time.
Errors
The parsers recover from errors automatically. If that is sufficient, you can ignore this section. However, if you want stricter behavior, or need to debug parser output, use optional argument ?report
of the parsers, and look in module Error
.
module Error : sig ... end
Error type and
to_string
function.
Encodings
The parsers detect encodings automatically. If you need to specify an encoding, use optional argument ?encoding
of the parsers, and look in module Encoding
.
module Encoding : sig ... end
Common Internet encodings such as UTF-8 and UTF-16; also includes some less popular encodings that are sometimes used for XML.
Signals
type xml_declaration
=
{
version : string;
encoding : string option;
standalone : bool option;
}
Representation of an XML declaration, i.e.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
.
type doctype
=
{
doctype_name : string option;
public_identifier : string option;
system_identifier : string option;
raw_text : string option;
force_quirks : bool;
}
Representation of a document type declaration. The HTML parser fills in all fields besides
raw_text
. The XML parser reads declarations roughly, and fills only theraw_text
field with the text found in the declaration.
type signal
=[
|
`Start_element of name * (name * string) list
|
`End_element
|
`Text of string list
|
`Doctype of doctype
|
`Xml of xml_declaration
|
`PI of string * string
|
`Comment of string
]
Parsing signals. The parsers emit them according to the following grammar:
doc ::= `Xml? misc* `Doctype? misc* element misc* misc ::= `PI | `Comment element ::= `Start_element content* `End_element content ::= `Text | element | `PI | `Comment
As a result, emitted
`Start_element
and`End_element
signals are always balanced, and, if there is an XML declaration, it is the first signal.If parsing with
~context:`Document
, the signal sequence will match thedoc
production until the first error. If parsing with~context:`Fragment
, it will matchcontent*
. If~context
is not specified, the parser will pick one of the two by examining the input.As an example, if the XML parser is parsing
<?xml version="1.0"?><root>text<nested>more text</nested></root>
it will emit the signal sequence
`Xml {version = "1.0"; encoding = None; standalone = None} `Start_element (("", "root"), []) `Text ["text"] `Start_element (("", "nested"), []) `Text ["more text"] `End_element `End_element
The
`Text
signal carries astring list
instead of a singlestring
because on 32-bit platforms, OCaml strings cannot be larger than 16MB. In case the parsers encounter a very long sequence of text, one whose length exceeds aboutSys.max_string_length / 2
, they will emit a`Text
signal with several strings.
type content_signal
=[
|
`Start_element of name * (name * string) list
|
`End_element
|
`Text of string list
]
A restriction of type
signal
to only elements and text, i.e. no comments, processing instructions, or declarations. This can be useful for pattern matching in applications that only care about the content and element structure of a document. See the helpercontent
.
val signal_to_string : [< signal ] -> string
Provides a human-readable representation of signals for debugging.
Parsers
XML
val parse_xml : ?report:(location -> Error.t -> unit) -> ?encoding:Encoding.t -> ?namespace:(string -> string option) -> ?entity:(string -> string option) -> ?context:[< `Document | `Fragment ] -> (char, 's) stream -> 's parser
Creates a parser that converts an XML byte stream to a signal stream.
For simple usage,
string "foo" |> parse_xml |> signals
.If
~report
is provided,report
is called for every error encountered. You may raise an exception inreport
, and it will propagate to the code reading the signal stream.If
~encoding
is not specified, the parser detects the input encoding automatically. Otherwise, the given encoding is used.~namespace
is called when the parser is unable to resolve a namespace prefix. If it evaluates toSome s
, the parser maps the prefix tos
. Otherwise, the parser reports`Bad_namespace
.~entity
is called when the parser is unable to resolve an entity reference. If it evaluates toSome s
, the parser insertss
into the text or attribute being parsed without any further parsing ofs
.s
is assumed to be encoded in UTF-8. Ifentity
evaluates toNone
instead, the parser reports`Bad_token
. Seexhtml_entity
if you are parsing XHTML.The meaning of
~context
is described atsignal
, above.
val write_xml : ?report:((signal * int) -> Error.t -> unit) -> ?prefix:(string -> string option) -> ([< signal ], 's) stream -> (char, 's) stream
Converts an XML signal stream to a byte stream.
If
~report
is provided, it is called for every error encountered. The first argument is a pair of the signal causing the error and its index in the signal stream. You may raise an exception inreport
, and it will propagate to the code reading the byte stream.~prefix
is called when the writer is unable to find a prefix in scope for a namespace URI. If it evaluates toSome s
, the writer usess
for the URI. Otherwise, the writer reports`Bad_namespace
.
HTML
val parse_html : ?report:(location -> Error.t -> unit) -> ?encoding:Encoding.t -> ?context:[< `Document | `Fragment of string ] -> (char, 's) stream -> 's parser
Similar to
parse_xml
, but parses HTML with embedded SVG and MathML, never emits signals`Xml
or`PI
, and~context
has a different type on tag`Fragment
.For HTML fragments, you should specify the enclosing element, e.g.
`Fragment "body"
. This is because, when parsing HTML, error recovery and the interpretation of text depend on the current element. For example, the textfoo</bar>
parses differently in
title
elements than inp
elements. In the former, it is parsed asfoo</bar>
, while in the latter, it isfoo
followed by a parse error due to unmatched tag</bar>
. To get these behaviors, set~context
to`Fragment "title"
and`Fragment "p"
, respectively.If you use
`Fragment "svg"
, the fragment is assumed to be SVG markup. Likewise,`Fragment "math"
causes the parser to parse MathML markup.If
~context
is omitted, the parser guesses it from the input stream. For example, if the first signal would be`Doctype
, the context is set to`Document
, but if the first signal would be`Start_element "td"
, the context is set to`Fragment "tr"
. If the first signal would be`Start_element "g"
, the context is set to`Fragment "svg"
.
Input sources
val string : string -> (char, sync) stream
Evaluates to a stream that retrieves successive bytes from the given string.
val buffer : Stdlib.Buffer.t -> (char, sync) stream
Evaluates to a stream that retrieves successive bytes from the given buffer. Be careful of changing the buffer while it is being iterated by the stream.
val channel : Stdlib.Pervasives.in_channel -> (char, sync) stream
Evaluates to a stream that retrieves bytes from the given channel. If the channel cannot be read, the next read of the stream results in raising
Sys_error
.Note that this input source is synchronous because
Pervasives.in_channel
reads are blocking. For non-blocking channels, seeMarkup_lwt_unix
.
val file : string -> (char, sync) stream * (unit -> unit)
file path
opens the file atpath
, then evaluates to a pairs, close
, where reading from streams
retrieves successive bytes from the file, and callingclose ()
closes the file.The file is closed automatically if
s
is read to completion, or if readings
raises an exception. It is not necessary to callclose ()
in these cases.If the file cannot be opened, raises
Sys_error
immediately. If the file cannot be read, reading the stream raisesSys_error
.
Output destinations
val to_string : (char, sync) stream -> string
Eagerly retrieves bytes from the given stream and assembles a string.
val to_buffer : (char, sync) stream -> Stdlib.Buffer.t
Eagerly retrieves bytes from the given stream and places them into a buffer.
val to_channel : Stdlib.Pervasives.out_channel -> (char, sync) stream -> unit
Eagerly retrieves bytes from the given stream and writes them to the given channel. If writing fails, raises
Sys_error
.
val to_file : string -> (char, sync) stream -> unit
Eagerly retrieves bytes from the given stream and writes them to the given file. If writing fails, or the file cannot be opened, raises
Sys_error
. Note that the file is truncated (cleared) before writing. If you wish to append to file, open it with the appropriate flags and useto_channel
on the resulting channel.
Stream operations
val stream : (unit -> 'a option) -> ('a, sync) stream
stream f
creates a stream that repeatedly callsf ()
. Each timef ()
evaluates toSome v
, the next item in the stream isv
. The first timef ()
evaluates toNone
, the stream ends.
val next : ('a, sync) stream -> 'a option
Retrieves the next item in the stream, if any, and removes it from the stream.
val peek : ('a, sync) stream -> 'a option
Retrieves the next item in the stream, if any, but does not remove the item from the stream.
val transform : ('a -> 'b -> 'c list * 'a option) -> 'a -> ('b, 's) stream -> ('c, 's) stream
transform f init s
lazily creates a stream by repeatedly applyingf acc v
, whereacc
is an accumulator whose initial value isinit
, andv
is consecutive values ofs
. Each time,f acc v
evaluates to a pair(vs, maybe_acc')
. The valuesvs
are added to the result stream. Ifmaybe_acc'
isSome acc'
, the accumulator is set toacc'
. Otherwise, ifmaybe_acc'
isNone
, the result stream ends.
val fold : ('a -> 'b -> 'a) -> 'a -> ('b, sync) stream -> 'a
fold f init s
eagerly folds over the itemsv
,v'
,v''
, ... ofs
, i.e. evaluatesf (f (f init v) v') v''
...
val map : ('a -> 'b) -> ('a, 's) stream -> ('b, 's) stream
map f s
lazily appliesf
to each item ofs
, and produces the resulting stream.
val filter : ('a -> bool) -> ('a, 's) stream -> ('a, 's) stream
filter f s
iss
without the items for whichf
evaluates tofalse
.filter
is lazy.
val filter_map : ('a -> 'b option) -> ('a, 's) stream -> ('b, 's) stream
filter_map f s
lazily appliesf
to each itemv
ofs
. Iff v
evaluates toSome v'
, the result stream hasv'
. Iff v
evaluates toNone
, no item corresponding tov
appears in the result stream.
val iter : ('a -> unit) -> ('a, sync) stream -> unit
iter f s
eagerly appliesf
to each item ofs
, i.e. evaluatesf v; f v'; f v''
...
Utility
val content : ([< signal ], 's) stream -> (content_signal, 's) stream
Converts a
signal
stream into acontent_signal
stream by filtering out all signals besides`Start_element
,`End_element
, and`Text
.
val tree : ?text:(string list -> 'a) -> ?element:(name -> (name * string) list -> 'a list -> 'a) -> ?comment:(string -> 'a) -> ?pi:(string -> string -> 'a) -> ?xml:(xml_declaration -> 'a) -> ?doctype:(doctype -> 'a) -> ([< signal ], sync) stream -> 'a option
This function's type signature may look intimidating, but it is actually easy to use. It is best introduced by example:
type my_dom = Text of string | Element of name * my_dom list "<p>HTML5 is <em>easy</em> to parse" |> string |> parse_html |> signals |> tree ~text:(fun ss -> Text (String.concat "" ss)) ~element:(fun (name, _) children -> Element (name, children))
results in the structure
Element ("p" [ Text "HTML5 is "; Element ("em", [Text "easy"]); Text " to parse"])
Formally,
tree
assembles a tree data structure of type'a
from a signal stream. The stream is parsed according to the following grammar:stream ::= node* node ::= element | `Text | `Comment | `PI | `Xml | `Doctype element ::= `Start_element node* `End_element
Each time
trees
matches a production ofnode
, it calls the corresponding function to convert the node into your tree type'a
. For example, whentrees
matches`Text ss
, it calls~text ss
, if~text
is supplied. Similarly, whentrees
matcheselement
, it calls~element name attributes children
, if~element
is supplied.See
trees
if the input stream might have multiple top-level trees. This functiontree
only retrieves the first one.
val trees : ?text:(string list -> 'a) -> ?element:(name -> (name * string) list -> 'a list -> 'a) -> ?comment:(string -> 'a) -> ?pi:(string -> string -> 'a) -> ?xml:(xml_declaration -> 'a) -> ?doctype:(doctype -> 'a) -> ([< signal ], 's) stream -> ('a, 's) stream
Like
tree
, but converts all top-level trees, not only the first one. The trees are emitted on the resulting stream, in the sequence that they appear in the input.
type 'a node
=[
|
`Element of name * (name * string) list * 'a list
|
`Text of string
|
`Doctype of doctype
|
`Xml of xml_declaration
|
`PI of string * string
|
`Comment of string
]
See
from_tree
below.
val from_tree : ('a -> 'a node) -> 'a -> (signal, sync) stream
Deconstructs tree data structures of type
'a
into signal streams. The function argument is applied to each data structure node. For example,type my_dom = Text of string | Element of string * my_dom list let dom = Element ("p", [ Text "HTML5 is "; Element ("em", [Text "easy"]); Text " to parse"]) dom |> from_tree (function | Text s -> `Text s | Element (name, children) -> `Element (("", name), [], children))
results in the signal stream
`Start_element (("", "p"), []) `Text ["HTML5 is "] `Start_element (("", "em"), []) `Text ["easy"] `End_element `Text " to parse" `End_element
val elements : (name -> (name * string) list -> bool) -> ([< signal ] as a, 's) stream -> (('a, 's) stream, 's) stream
elements f s
scans the signal streams
for`Start_element (name, attributes)
signals that satisfyf name attributes
. Each such matching signal is the beginning of a substream that ends with the corresponding`End_element
signal. The result ofelements f s
is the stream of these substreams.Matches don't nest. If there is a matching element contained in another matching element, only the top one results in a substream.
Code using
elements
does not have to read each substream to completion, or at all. However, once the using code has tried to get the next substream, it should not try to read a previous one.
val text : ([< signal ], 's) stream -> (char, 's) stream
Extracts all the text in a signal stream by discarding all markup. For each
`Text ss
signal, the result stream has the bytes of the stringsss
, and all other signals are ignored.
val trim : ([> content_signal ] as a, 's) stream -> ('a, 's) stream
Trims insignificant whitespace in an HTML signal stream. Whitespace around flow ("block") content does not matter, but whitespace in phrasing ("inline") content does. So, if the input stream is
<div> <p> <em>foo</em> bar </p> </div>
passing it through
Markup.trim
will result in<div><p><em>foo</em> bar</p></div>
Note that whitespace around the
</em>
tag was preserved.
val normalize_text : ([> `Text of string list ] as a, 's) stream -> ('a, 's) stream
Concatenates adjacent
`Text
signals, then eliminates all empty strings, then all`Text []
signals. Signals besides`Text
are unaffected. Note that signal streams emitted by the parsers already have normalized text. This function is useful when you are inserting text into a signal stream after parsing, or generating streams from scratch, and would like to clean up the`Text
signals.
val pretty_print : ([> content_signal ] as a, 's) stream -> ('a, 's) stream
Adjusts the whitespace in the
`Text
signals in the given stream so that the output appears nicely-indented when the stream is converted to bytes and written.This function is aware of the significance of whitespace in HTML, so it avoids changing the whitespace in phrasing ("inline") content. For example, pretty printing
<div><p><em>foo</em>bar</p></div>
results in
<div> <p> <em>foo</em>bar </p> </div>
Note that no whitespace was inserted around
<em>
and</em>
, because doing so would create a word break that wasn't present in the original stream.
val html5 : ([< signal ], 's) stream -> (signal, 's) stream
Converts a signal stream into an HTML5 signal stream by stripping any document type declarations, XML declarations, and processing instructions, and prefixing the HTML5 doctype declaration. This is useful when converting between XHTML and HTML.
val xhtml : ?dtd:[< `Strict_1_0 | `Transitional_1_0 | `Frameset_1_0 | `Strict_1_1 ] -> ([< signal ], 's) stream -> (signal, 's) stream
Similar to
html5
, but does not strip processing instructions, and prefixes an XHTML document type declaration and an XML declaration. The~dtd
argument specifies which DTD to refer to in the doctype declaration. The default is`Strict_1_1
.
val xhtml_entity : string -> string option
Translates XHTML entities. This function is for use with the
~entity
argument ofparse_xml
when parsing XHTML.
Namespaces
module Ns : sig ... end
Common namespace URIs.
Asynchronous interface
module type ASYNCHRONOUS = sig ... end
Markup.ml interface for monadic I/O libraries such as Lwt and Async.
Conformance status
The HTML parser seeks to implement section 8 of the HTML5 specification. That section describes a parser, part of a full-blown user agent, that is building up a DOM representation of an HTML document. Markup.ml is neither inherently part of a user agent, nor does it build up a DOM representation. With respect to section 8 of HTML5, Markup.ml is concerned with only the syntax. When that section requires that the user agent perform an action, Markup.ml emits enough information for a hypothetical user agent based on it to be able to decide to perform this action. Likewise, Markup.ml seeks to emit enough information for a hypothetical user agent to build up a conforming DOM.
The XML parser seeks to be a non-validating implementation of the XML and Namespaces in XML specifications.
This rest of this section lists known deviations from HTML5, XML, and Namespaces in XML. Some of these deviations are meant to be corrected in future versions of Markup.ml, while others will probably remain. The latter satisfy some or all of the following properties:
- They require non-local adjustment, especially of past nodes. For example, adjusting the start signal of the root node mid-way through the signal stream is difficult for a one-pass parser.
- They are minor. Users implementing less than a conforming browser typically don't care about them. They typically have to do with obscure error recovery. There are no deviations affecting the parsing of well-formed input.
- They can easily be corrected by code written over Markup.ml that builds up a DOM or maintains other auxiliary data structures during parsing.
To be corrected:
- XML: There is no attribute value normalization.
- HTML: foster parenting is not implemented, because it requires non-local adjustments.
- HTML: Quirks mode is not honored. This affects the interaction between automatic closing of
p
elements and opening oftable
elements. - HTML: The parser has non-standard recovery from unmatched closing
form
tags in some situations. - HTML: The parser ignores interactions between
form
andtemplate
. - HTML: The form translation for
isindex
is completely ignored.isindex
is handled as an unknown element.
To remain:
- HTML: Except when detecting encodings, the parser does not try to read
<meta>
tags for encoding declarations. The user of Markup.ml should read these, if necessary. They are part of the emitted signal stream. - HTML:
noscript
elements are always parsed, as arescript
elements. For conforming behavior, if the user of Markup.ml "supports scripts," the user should serialize the content ofnoscript
to a`Text
signal usingwrite_html
. - HTML: Elements such as
title
that belong inhead
, but are found betweenhead
andbody
, are not moved intohead
. - HTML:
<html>
tags found in the body do not have their attributes added to the`Start_element "html"
signal emitted at the beginning of the document.