Zig bindings for the PugiXML C++ parser

Pugixml C++ (https://pugixml.org/) is a high-speed in-situ XML parser. It parses XML to a DOM structure without doing much copying of the data (using pointers). It is one of the fastest XML parsers available. XML files must fit in memory with an overhead of about 25%.

The code for pugixml C++ (currently v1.15) is included in this repo in the src/c/pugi*.[ch]pp files. The zig c->cpp interface to the library files are in src/c/zig-pugixml.cpp and src/c/zig-pugixml.h.

C++ and Zig

Using C++ code from Zig requires a translation layer using the C++ code from C, then exporting the C functions via extern C in the C header file. Zig code then imports the C header file to reference its definitions. This code is linked into the final binary (staticly for this binding).

Look in src/c/zig-pugixml.h to see how zig does C imports.

Check out build.zig to see how the build system compiles the C++ library and links it to the Zig module.

Sample program: parse-xml

There is a sample program parse-xml included in the build that shows how to use the zig module. It times how long it takes to parse an XML file. Example:

$ ./zig-out/bin/parse-xml
Usage: parse-xml filename

$ ls -lh ./big-testfile.xml
-rw-r--r-- 434M Jan 15 03:12 ./big-testfile.xml

$ ./zig-out/bin/parse-xml ./big-testfile.xml 
./big-testfile.xml: No error.
Elapsed time: 224.362ms.

parse-xml should run fine against malformed data, e.g.:

$ ./zig-out/bin/parse-xml /dev/random
/dev/random: Error reading from file/stream.
Elapsed time: 0.059ms.

For more examples of using the module, look at the tests in src/tests.zig.

Building:

Use version 0.15.1 of Zig to build.

Primary Development is on a MacBook M4 Pro (aarch64) running macOS Sequoia (15.2).

Cross-compiled builds produced working versions for the following platforms:

• x86_64-windows
• aarch64-windows
• aarch64-linux
• aarch64-macos

For production builds:

zig build --release=fast

zig build --release=small

For debug build (the default):

zig build

Building for other OSes

By default, Zig builds for the OS running the compiler. To cross compile for a different system, use commands like these:

zig build -Dtarget=x86-64-winodws --release=small zig build -Dtarget=aarch64-windows --release=fast zig build -Dtarget=x86-64-linux --release=fast zig build -Dtarget=aarch64-linux --release=fast

By default, the Linux targets will use musl as the libc. Add -Dtarget=aarch64-linux-gnu to use the GNU libc (also makes the binary dynamically linked to libc etc.).

Tests

For tests in debug mode:

zig build test

For tests in release mode:

zig build test --release=fast

A clean test run will return no output, which means all tests passed. The exit code should be 0 for a good test run.

Build Artifacts

Output from build is in ./zig-out, with sample binary parse-xml in ./zig-out/bin/parse-xml.

Include files and C code is in ./zig-out/include.

The static library for pugixml C++ created during the build is in ./zig-out/lib/libpugixml_cpp.a .

Build options

Use zig build -h to see other options and build commands:

$ zig build -h
Usage: zig build [steps] [options]

Steps:
  install (default)            Copy build artifacts to prefix path
  uninstall                    Remove build artifacts from prefix path
  run                          run parse-xml
  test                         run tests
  clean                        Clean up
  tarball                      Make tarball from sources

...