xml2table 0.1.0__tar.gz

xml2table-0.1.0/LICENSE

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+MIT License
+
+Copyright (c) 2026 Research
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
+copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
+SOFTWARE.

xml2table-0.1.0/PKG-INFO

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+Metadata-Version: 2.4
+Name: xml2table
+Version: 0.1.0
+Summary: Convert XML and PDF documents to CSV, Excel, XML, and text with a small, predictable SDK.
+Author-email: Meet2147 <meetjethwa3@gmail.com>
+License: MIT
+Project-URL: Homepage, https://github.com/Meet2147/pythonLibraries/tree/main/xml2table
+Project-URL: Repository, https://github.com/Meet2147/pythonLibraries
+Project-URL: Issues, https://github.com/Meet2147/pythonLibraries/issues
+Keywords: xml,pdf,csv,excel,xlsx,convert,flatten,etl
+Classifier: Development Status :: 4 - Beta
+Classifier: Intended Audience :: Developers
+Classifier: License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License
+Classifier: Operating System :: OS Independent
+Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3
+Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8
+Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9
+Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10
+Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11
+Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12
+Classifier: Topic :: Software Development :: Libraries
+Classifier: Topic :: Text Processing :: Markup :: XML
+Requires-Python: >=3.8
+Description-Content-Type: text/markdown
+License-File: LICENSE
+Requires-Dist: openpyxl>=3.1
+Provides-Extra: pandas
+Requires-Dist: pandas>=1.3; extra == "pandas"
+Provides-Extra: lxml
+Requires-Dist: lxml>=4.9; extra == "lxml"
+Provides-Extra: pdf-text
+Requires-Dist: pypdf>=4.0; extra == "pdf-text"
+Provides-Extra: pdf
+Requires-Dist: pdfplumber>=0.10; extra == "pdf"
+Requires-Dist: pypdf>=4.0; extra == "pdf"
+Provides-Extra: dev
+Requires-Dist: pytest>=7.0; extra == "dev"
+Requires-Dist: pandas>=1.3; extra == "dev"
+Requires-Dist: pdfplumber>=0.10; extra == "dev"
+Requires-Dist: pypdf>=4.0; extra == "dev"
+Requires-Dist: fpdf2>=2.7; extra == "dev"
+Dynamic: license-file
+
+# xml2table
+
+A small, predictable Python SDK for converting XML and PDF documents to
+CSV, Excel, XML, and plain text.
+
+- **XML → CSV / Excel.** One core recursive flattening function turns
+  nested XML into flat rows; CSV and Excel are thin writers on top of it.
+  No data loss by default: repeated elements can be joined into one cell,
+  exploded into extra rows, or spread across indexed columns — you choose.
+- **PDF → XML.** A structure-preserving extractor ([`pdfplumber`](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber)-backed)
+  groups a PDF's words into paragraphs and detects tables, keeping both in
+  their original top-to-bottom reading order — no data lost, no tables
+  flattened into loose words.
+- **PDF → text.** A fast, lightweight raw-text extractor
+  ([`pypdf`](https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf)-backed) that doesn't need
+  table detection at all — just the PDF's text, in reading order, with its
+  visual whitespace layout preserved by default.
+- **Small dependency footprint.** Only [`openpyxl`](https://openpyxl.readthedocs.io/)
+  is required for the XML-to-table side. `pandas` (DataFrames), `pypdf`
+  (PDF text), and `pdfplumber` (PDF XML/tables) are all optional extras —
+  importing `xml2table` never requires any of them.
+- **Three ways in, for each conversion:** one-line functions, a reusable
+  converter object, or the `xml2table` CLI.
+
+## Install
+
+```bash
+pip install -e .             # from a checkout: XML -> CSV/Excel only
+pip install -e ".[pandas]"   # + optional DataFrame support
+pip install -e ".[pdf-text]" # + PDF -> text (pypdf only, lightweight)
+pip install -e ".[pdf]"      # + PDF -> XML and text (pdfplumber + pypdf)
+```
+
+## Quick start
+
+```python
+from xml2table import xml_to_csv, xml_to_excel
+
+xml_to_csv("orders.xml", "orders.csv")
+xml_to_excel("orders.xml", "orders.xlsx")
+```
+
+Given:
+
+```xml
+<orders>
+  <order id="1">
+    <customer><name>Jane Doe</name></customer>
+    <total>99.99</total>
+  </order>
+</orders>
+```
+
+you get one row per `<order>`:
+
+| @id | customer.name | total |
+|-----|----------------|-------|
+| 1   | Jane Doe       | 99.99 |
+
+Nested elements are flattened with `.`-separated keys, attributes get an
+`@` prefix, and the record element (`order` here) is auto-detected as "the
+repeated child of the root". When detection is ambiguous, pass
+`record_path` explicitly.
+
+## Reusable converter
+
+Parse once, write many times:
+
+```python
+from xml2table import XMLConverter, FlattenOptions
+
+converter = XMLConverter("orders.xml", options=FlattenOptions(record_path="Order"))
+converter.to_csv("orders.csv")
+converter.to_excel("orders.xlsx", sheet_name="Orders")
+rows = converter.to_records()      # list[dict]
+df = converter.to_dataframe()      # requires pandas
+```
+
+## Handling repeated elements (`array_mode`)
+
+Given an order with two line items, `FlattenOptions.array_mode` controls the
+shape of the output:
+
+| mode | Result | Use when |
+|------|--------|----------|
+| `"join"` (default) | One row per order; items collapsed into one joined cell | You just want a quick, human-readable table |
+| `"explode"` | One row per item (order fields repeat) | You want a normalized, analysis-ready table, like a SQL join |
+| `"index"` | One row per order; items spread into `items.item.0.*`, `items.item.1.*`, ... | You need every field as its own column with no row duplication |
+
+```python
+from xml2table import FlattenOptions, xml_to_records
+
+xml_to_records("orders.xml", options=FlattenOptions(array_mode="explode"))
+```
+
+## Multi-sheet Excel from one document
+
+Turn different parts of the same XML document into separate, related sheets
+(e.g. an "orders" table and an "items" table):
+
+```python
+from xml2table import xml_to_excel
+
+xml_to_excel(
+    "orders.xml", "orders.xlsx",
+    sheets={"orders": "Order", "items": ".//Order/Items/Item"},
+)
+```
+
+## Record paths
+
+`record_path` uses the same syntax as
+[`Element.findall`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall)
+(a subset of XPath): `"Order"`, `"Orders/Order"`, `".//Item"`,
+`"Order[@status='shipped']"`, etc.
+
+## CLI (XML)
+
+```bash
+xml2table csv orders.xml orders.csv --record-path Order --array-mode explode
+xml2table excel orders.xml orders.xlsx --sheet-name Orders
+xml2table excel orders.xml orders.xlsx --sheet orders=Order --sheet items=".//Item"
+```
+
+Run `xml2table csv --help` or `xml2table excel --help` for all flags
+(`--separator`, `--attribute-prefix`, `--no-attributes`, `--keep-namespaces`,
+`--delimiter`, `--encoding`, ...).
+
+## PDF → XML / text
+
+`pdf_to_xml` and `pdf_to_text` are two independent, purpose-built backends
+behind one options object and one CLI command:
+
+- **`pdf_to_xml`** (pdfplumber) groups the PDF's words into paragraphs (by
+  line, then by vertical gap) and detects tables separately via ruling
+  lines or text alignment, then places both back in the order they appear
+  on the page. Nothing is dropped, and table text never bleeds into
+  surrounding paragraphs.
+- **`pdf_to_text`** (pypdf) is a much lighter path: it just extracts each
+  page's text in reading order, preserving the PDF's visual whitespace
+  layout by default (so simple tables and columns still read naturally)
+  without doing any table detection.
+
+```python
+from xml2table import pdf_to_xml, pdf_to_text
+
+pdf_to_xml("invoice.pdf", "invoice.xml")    # paragraphs + tables (needs xml2table[pdf])
+pdf_to_text("invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt")   # fast raw text (needs xml2table[pdf-text])
+```
+
+`invoice.xml` looks like:
+
+```xml
+<document source="invoice.pdf" pages="1">
+  <page number="1" width="595.28" height="841.89">
+    <paragraph bbox="42.83,43.13,159.90,61.13">Invoice #1024</paragraph>
+    <table bbox="40.00,220.00,540.00,316.00" rows="4" cols="3">
+      <row><cell>Item</cell><cell>Qty</cell><cell>Price</cell></row>
+      <row><cell>Widget</cell><cell>2</cell><cell>$10.00</cell></row>
+      ...
+    </table>
+  </page>
+</document>
+```
+
+`invoice.txt` is pypdf's layout-preserving text, e.g.:
+
+```
+Invoice #1024
+
+Bill To: Jane Doe
+123 Example Street
+Springfield, USA
+
+Thank you for your business. Payment is due within thirty days...
+
+Item                                                          Qty        Price
+Widget                                                        2          $10.00
+...
+```
+
+Reuse one `PDFConverter` for both (it lazily parses with pdfplumber only if
+you call `to_xml()`/`pages`, and always uses pypdf for `to_text()`):
+
+```python
+from xml2table import PDFConverter
+
+converter = PDFConverter("invoice.pdf")
+converter.to_xml("invoice.xml")
+converter.to_text("invoice.txt")
+for page in converter.pages:
+    print(page.number, len(page.paragraphs), len(page.tables))
+```
+
+### `PDFOptions` reference
+
+| Option | Default | Used by | Description |
+|--------|---------|---------|--------------|
+| `line_tolerance` | `3.0` | XML | Max vertical gap (points) for words to count as the same line |
+| `paragraph_gap` | `6.0` | XML | Min vertical gap (points) between lines that starts a new paragraph |
+| `table_settings` | `None` | XML | Passed through to pdfplumber's `find_tables()` for unusual tables (e.g. borderless). **Caution:** this applies to the whole page, not just the table — see [Validation](#validation-tested-on-1200-financial-report-pdfs) below before using it on documents with narrative text. |
+| `cell_na` | `""` | XML | String used for empty/missing table cells |
+| `page_separator` | `"\n----- Page {page} -----\n"` | text | Inserted between pages |
+| `keep_layout` | `True` | text | Preserve the PDF's whitespace layout (pypdf `"layout"` mode) vs. plain, whitespace-normalized text |
+
+### CLI (PDF)
+
+```bash
+xml2table pdf invoice.pdf invoice.xml --to xml
+xml2table pdf invoice.pdf invoice.txt --to text
+```
+
+Run `xml2table pdf --help` for all flags (`--line-tolerance`,
+`--paragraph-gap`, `--cell-na`, `--page-separator`, `--no-layout`).
+
+## Validation: tested on 1,200 financial-report PDFs
+
+`pdf_to_xml` and `pdf_to_text` were benchmarked against 1,200 generated
+financial-report PDFs (balance sheets, income statements, cash-flow
+statements, MD&A-style narrative text, footnotes — real financial
+formatting: `$1,234,567`, `(123,456)` negatives, `N/A` blanks, multi-page,
+ruled and borderless tables) with **exact ground truth** for every paragraph
+and table cell, so the numbers below are measured, not estimated. Full
+methodology, the generator, and raw per-document results are in
+[`benchmarks/RESULTS.md`](benchmarks/RESULTS.md).
+
+| Metric | Result |
+|---|---|
+| Documents converted without error | **1,200 / 1,200 (100%)** |
+| Paragraph text fidelity (XML) | **100.000%** |
+| Ruled-table shape + cell fidelity | **100.000%** |
+| Borderless-table shape detection | 0.000% (documented limitation — see below) |
+| Raw-text content recall (`pdf_to_text`) | **100.000%**, including for borderless tables |
+| Throughput | 20.4 PDFs/sec (`pdf_to_xml`), 184.6 PDFs/sec (`pdf_to_text`) |
+
+**The one real limitation, quantified:** pdfplumber's default table finder
+needs ruling lines, so it doesn't detect borderless (text-only-aligned)
+tables — but nothing is lost when it doesn't: the un-detected table's text
+still comes through as ordinary paragraph text (`pdf_to_text` recall stays
+at 100%). We also tested the obvious "fix" — pdfplumber's `table_settings`
+override for borderless tables — across all 1,200 documents, and it made
+things *worse*: because the override applies to the whole page, it started
+misreading ordinary paragraph sentences as table cells, corrupting
+paragraph output in **97.9% of documents** (paragraph fidelity dropped from
+100% to 13.9%). We did not ship that as a recommended workaround; see
+`PDFOptions.table_settings`'s docstring and `benchmarks/RESULTS.md` for the
+full numbers and why.
+
+We could not download real financial filings for this test — this sandboxed
+session's network policy blocks direct access to sites like sec.gov — so
+the corpus is synthetic but built to real financial-statement conventions
+specifically so every value has a known-correct answer to grade against.
+`benchmarks/RESULTS.md` explains this in more detail and gives the exact
+commands to reproduce or extend the benchmark (e.g. against real filings, on
+a machine with broader network access).
+
+## `FlattenOptions` reference
+
+| Option | Default | Description |
+|--------|---------|--------------|
+| `record_path` | `None` (auto-detect) | Path to the repeated record element |
+| `attribute_prefix` | `"@"` | Prefix for attribute-derived columns |
+| `text_key` | `"#text"` | Key for an element's own text when it also has attributes/children |
+| `separator` | `"."` | Separator for nested key paths |
+| `array_mode` | `"join"` | `"join"`, `"explode"`, or `"index"` |
+| `join_separator` | `"; "` | Separator used by `"join"` mode |
+| `include_attributes` | `True` | Include XML attributes as columns |
+| `strip_namespaces` | `True` | Strip `{namespace}` from tag/attribute names |
+| `encoding` | `"utf-8"` | Text encoding for reads/writes |
+
+## Errors
+
+All exceptions inherit from `xml2table.XMLConversionError`:
+
+- `XMLParseError` — malformed XML input
+- `RecordPathNotFoundError` — `record_path` matched nothing, or automatic
+  record detection was ambiguous (the error message tells you what to pass)
+- `PDFExtractionError` — a PDF file could not be opened or parsed
+- `MissingOptionalDependencyError` — e.g. calling `to_dataframe()` without
+  `pandas`, `pdf_to_xml()` without `pdfplumber`, or `pdf_to_text()` without
+  `pypdf`, installed
+
+## Development
+
+```bash
+pip install -e ".[dev]"   # includes pandas, pdfplumber, pypdf, and fpdf2 (for regenerating PDF fixtures)
+pytest
+python examples/quickstart.py
+```
+
+Project layout:
+
+```
+src/xml2table/
+  parser.py          # XML -> list[dict] flattening engine
+  options.py         # FlattenOptions
+  converter.py       # XMLConverter + module-level convenience functions
+  writers/           # CSV and Excel output
+  pdf_extract.py     # pdfplumber: PDF -> Document(pages of Paragraph/Table), in reading order
+  pdf_xml_writer.py  # Document -> XML
+  pdf_text_extract.py # pypdf: PDF -> plain text, independent of pdf_extract.py
+  pdf_options.py     # PDFOptions
+  pdf_converter.py   # PDFConverter + pdf_to_xml/pdf_to_text
+  cli.py             # `xml2table` command-line tool
+tests/
+  fixtures/          # sample XML documents and PDF fixtures (fixtures/pdf/)
+  test_*.py
+examples/
+  quickstart.py
+```

xml2table-0.1.0/README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,310 @@
+# xml2table
+
+A small, predictable Python SDK for converting XML and PDF documents to
+CSV, Excel, XML, and plain text.
+
+- **XML → CSV / Excel.** One core recursive flattening function turns
+  nested XML into flat rows; CSV and Excel are thin writers on top of it.
+  No data loss by default: repeated elements can be joined into one cell,
+  exploded into extra rows, or spread across indexed columns — you choose.
+- **PDF → XML.** A structure-preserving extractor ([`pdfplumber`](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber)-backed)
+  groups a PDF's words into paragraphs and detects tables, keeping both in
+  their original top-to-bottom reading order — no data lost, no tables
+  flattened into loose words.
+- **PDF → text.** A fast, lightweight raw-text extractor
+  ([`pypdf`](https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf)-backed) that doesn't need
+  table detection at all — just the PDF's text, in reading order, with its
+  visual whitespace layout preserved by default.
+- **Small dependency footprint.** Only [`openpyxl`](https://openpyxl.readthedocs.io/)
+  is required for the XML-to-table side. `pandas` (DataFrames), `pypdf`
+  (PDF text), and `pdfplumber` (PDF XML/tables) are all optional extras —
+  importing `xml2table` never requires any of them.
+- **Three ways in, for each conversion:** one-line functions, a reusable
+  converter object, or the `xml2table` CLI.
+
+## Install
+
+```bash
+pip install -e .             # from a checkout: XML -> CSV/Excel only
+pip install -e ".[pandas]"   # + optional DataFrame support
+pip install -e ".[pdf-text]" # + PDF -> text (pypdf only, lightweight)
+pip install -e ".[pdf]"      # + PDF -> XML and text (pdfplumber + pypdf)
+```
+
+## Quick start
+
+```python
+from xml2table import xml_to_csv, xml_to_excel
+
+xml_to_csv("orders.xml", "orders.csv")
+xml_to_excel("orders.xml", "orders.xlsx")
+```
+
+Given:
+
+```xml
+<orders>
+  <order id="1">
+    <customer><name>Jane Doe</name></customer>
+    <total>99.99</total>
+  </order>
+</orders>
+```
+
+you get one row per `<order>`:
+
+| @id | customer.name | total |
+|-----|----------------|-------|
+| 1   | Jane Doe       | 99.99 |
+
+Nested elements are flattened with `.`-separated keys, attributes get an
+`@` prefix, and the record element (`order` here) is auto-detected as "the
+repeated child of the root". When detection is ambiguous, pass
+`record_path` explicitly.
+
+## Reusable converter
+
+Parse once, write many times:
+
+```python
+from xml2table import XMLConverter, FlattenOptions
+
+converter = XMLConverter("orders.xml", options=FlattenOptions(record_path="Order"))
+converter.to_csv("orders.csv")
+converter.to_excel("orders.xlsx", sheet_name="Orders")
+rows = converter.to_records()      # list[dict]
+df = converter.to_dataframe()      # requires pandas
+```
+
+## Handling repeated elements (`array_mode`)
+
+Given an order with two line items, `FlattenOptions.array_mode` controls the
+shape of the output:
+
+| mode | Result | Use when |
+|------|--------|----------|
+| `"join"` (default) | One row per order; items collapsed into one joined cell | You just want a quick, human-readable table |
+| `"explode"` | One row per item (order fields repeat) | You want a normalized, analysis-ready table, like a SQL join |
+| `"index"` | One row per order; items spread into `items.item.0.*`, `items.item.1.*`, ... | You need every field as its own column with no row duplication |
+
+```python
+from xml2table import FlattenOptions, xml_to_records
+
+xml_to_records("orders.xml", options=FlattenOptions(array_mode="explode"))
+```
+
+## Multi-sheet Excel from one document
+
+Turn different parts of the same XML document into separate, related sheets
+(e.g. an "orders" table and an "items" table):
+
+```python
+from xml2table import xml_to_excel
+
+xml_to_excel(
+    "orders.xml", "orders.xlsx",
+    sheets={"orders": "Order", "items": ".//Order/Items/Item"},
+)
+```
+
+## Record paths
+
+`record_path` uses the same syntax as
+[`Element.findall`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall)
+(a subset of XPath): `"Order"`, `"Orders/Order"`, `".//Item"`,
+`"Order[@status='shipped']"`, etc.
+
+## CLI (XML)
+
+```bash
+xml2table csv orders.xml orders.csv --record-path Order --array-mode explode
+xml2table excel orders.xml orders.xlsx --sheet-name Orders
+xml2table excel orders.xml orders.xlsx --sheet orders=Order --sheet items=".//Item"
+```
+
+Run `xml2table csv --help` or `xml2table excel --help` for all flags
+(`--separator`, `--attribute-prefix`, `--no-attributes`, `--keep-namespaces`,
+`--delimiter`, `--encoding`, ...).
+
+## PDF → XML / text
+
+`pdf_to_xml` and `pdf_to_text` are two independent, purpose-built backends
+behind one options object and one CLI command:
+
+- **`pdf_to_xml`** (pdfplumber) groups the PDF's words into paragraphs (by
+  line, then by vertical gap) and detects tables separately via ruling
+  lines or text alignment, then places both back in the order they appear
+  on the page. Nothing is dropped, and table text never bleeds into
+  surrounding paragraphs.
+- **`pdf_to_text`** (pypdf) is a much lighter path: it just extracts each
+  page's text in reading order, preserving the PDF's visual whitespace
+  layout by default (so simple tables and columns still read naturally)
+  without doing any table detection.
+
+```python
+from xml2table import pdf_to_xml, pdf_to_text
+
+pdf_to_xml("invoice.pdf", "invoice.xml")    # paragraphs + tables (needs xml2table[pdf])
+pdf_to_text("invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt")   # fast raw text (needs xml2table[pdf-text])
+```
+
+`invoice.xml` looks like:
+
+```xml
+<document source="invoice.pdf" pages="1">
+  <page number="1" width="595.28" height="841.89">
+    <paragraph bbox="42.83,43.13,159.90,61.13">Invoice #1024</paragraph>
+    <table bbox="40.00,220.00,540.00,316.00" rows="4" cols="3">
+      <row><cell>Item</cell><cell>Qty</cell><cell>Price</cell></row>
+      <row><cell>Widget</cell><cell>2</cell><cell>$10.00</cell></row>
+      ...
+    </table>
+  </page>
+</document>
+```
+
+`invoice.txt` is pypdf's layout-preserving text, e.g.:
+
+```
+Invoice #1024
+
+Bill To: Jane Doe
+123 Example Street
+Springfield, USA
+
+Thank you for your business. Payment is due within thirty days...
+
+Item                                                          Qty        Price
+Widget                                                        2          $10.00
+...
+```
+
+Reuse one `PDFConverter` for both (it lazily parses with pdfplumber only if
+you call `to_xml()`/`pages`, and always uses pypdf for `to_text()`):
+
+```python
+from xml2table import PDFConverter
+
+converter = PDFConverter("invoice.pdf")
+converter.to_xml("invoice.xml")
+converter.to_text("invoice.txt")
+for page in converter.pages:
+    print(page.number, len(page.paragraphs), len(page.tables))
+```
+
+### `PDFOptions` reference
+
+| Option | Default | Used by | Description |
+|--------|---------|---------|--------------|
+| `line_tolerance` | `3.0` | XML | Max vertical gap (points) for words to count as the same line |
+| `paragraph_gap` | `6.0` | XML | Min vertical gap (points) between lines that starts a new paragraph |
+| `table_settings` | `None` | XML | Passed through to pdfplumber's `find_tables()` for unusual tables (e.g. borderless). **Caution:** this applies to the whole page, not just the table — see [Validation](#validation-tested-on-1200-financial-report-pdfs) below before using it on documents with narrative text. |
+| `cell_na` | `""` | XML | String used for empty/missing table cells |
+| `page_separator` | `"\n----- Page {page} -----\n"` | text | Inserted between pages |
+| `keep_layout` | `True` | text | Preserve the PDF's whitespace layout (pypdf `"layout"` mode) vs. plain, whitespace-normalized text |
+
+### CLI (PDF)
+
+```bash
+xml2table pdf invoice.pdf invoice.xml --to xml
+xml2table pdf invoice.pdf invoice.txt --to text
+```
+
+Run `xml2table pdf --help` for all flags (`--line-tolerance`,
+`--paragraph-gap`, `--cell-na`, `--page-separator`, `--no-layout`).
+
+## Validation: tested on 1,200 financial-report PDFs
+
+`pdf_to_xml` and `pdf_to_text` were benchmarked against 1,200 generated
+financial-report PDFs (balance sheets, income statements, cash-flow
+statements, MD&A-style narrative text, footnotes — real financial
+formatting: `$1,234,567`, `(123,456)` negatives, `N/A` blanks, multi-page,
+ruled and borderless tables) with **exact ground truth** for every paragraph
+and table cell, so the numbers below are measured, not estimated. Full
+methodology, the generator, and raw per-document results are in
+[`benchmarks/RESULTS.md`](benchmarks/RESULTS.md).
+
+| Metric | Result |
+|---|---|
+| Documents converted without error | **1,200 / 1,200 (100%)** |
+| Paragraph text fidelity (XML) | **100.000%** |
+| Ruled-table shape + cell fidelity | **100.000%** |
+| Borderless-table shape detection | 0.000% (documented limitation — see below) |
+| Raw-text content recall (`pdf_to_text`) | **100.000%**, including for borderless tables |
+| Throughput | 20.4 PDFs/sec (`pdf_to_xml`), 184.6 PDFs/sec (`pdf_to_text`) |
+
+**The one real limitation, quantified:** pdfplumber's default table finder
+needs ruling lines, so it doesn't detect borderless (text-only-aligned)
+tables — but nothing is lost when it doesn't: the un-detected table's text
+still comes through as ordinary paragraph text (`pdf_to_text` recall stays
+at 100%). We also tested the obvious "fix" — pdfplumber's `table_settings`
+override for borderless tables — across all 1,200 documents, and it made
+things *worse*: because the override applies to the whole page, it started
+misreading ordinary paragraph sentences as table cells, corrupting
+paragraph output in **97.9% of documents** (paragraph fidelity dropped from
+100% to 13.9%). We did not ship that as a recommended workaround; see
+`PDFOptions.table_settings`'s docstring and `benchmarks/RESULTS.md` for the
+full numbers and why.
+
+We could not download real financial filings for this test — this sandboxed
+session's network policy blocks direct access to sites like sec.gov — so
+the corpus is synthetic but built to real financial-statement conventions
+specifically so every value has a known-correct answer to grade against.
+`benchmarks/RESULTS.md` explains this in more detail and gives the exact
+commands to reproduce or extend the benchmark (e.g. against real filings, on
+a machine with broader network access).
+
+## `FlattenOptions` reference
+
+| Option | Default | Description |
+|--------|---------|--------------|
+| `record_path` | `None` (auto-detect) | Path to the repeated record element |
+| `attribute_prefix` | `"@"` | Prefix for attribute-derived columns |
+| `text_key` | `"#text"` | Key for an element's own text when it also has attributes/children |
+| `separator` | `"."` | Separator for nested key paths |
+| `array_mode` | `"join"` | `"join"`, `"explode"`, or `"index"` |
+| `join_separator` | `"; "` | Separator used by `"join"` mode |
+| `include_attributes` | `True` | Include XML attributes as columns |
+| `strip_namespaces` | `True` | Strip `{namespace}` from tag/attribute names |
+| `encoding` | `"utf-8"` | Text encoding for reads/writes |
+
+## Errors
+
+All exceptions inherit from `xml2table.XMLConversionError`:
+
+- `XMLParseError` — malformed XML input
+- `RecordPathNotFoundError` — `record_path` matched nothing, or automatic
+  record detection was ambiguous (the error message tells you what to pass)
+- `PDFExtractionError` — a PDF file could not be opened or parsed
+- `MissingOptionalDependencyError` — e.g. calling `to_dataframe()` without
+  `pandas`, `pdf_to_xml()` without `pdfplumber`, or `pdf_to_text()` without
+  `pypdf`, installed
+
+## Development
+
+```bash
+pip install -e ".[dev]"   # includes pandas, pdfplumber, pypdf, and fpdf2 (for regenerating PDF fixtures)
+pytest
+python examples/quickstart.py
+```
+
+Project layout:
+
+```
+src/xml2table/
+  parser.py          # XML -> list[dict] flattening engine
+  options.py         # FlattenOptions
+  converter.py       # XMLConverter + module-level convenience functions
+  writers/           # CSV and Excel output
+  pdf_extract.py     # pdfplumber: PDF -> Document(pages of Paragraph/Table), in reading order
+  pdf_xml_writer.py  # Document -> XML
+  pdf_text_extract.py # pypdf: PDF -> plain text, independent of pdf_extract.py
+  pdf_options.py     # PDFOptions
+  pdf_converter.py   # PDFConverter + pdf_to_xml/pdf_to_text
+  cli.py             # `xml2table` command-line tool
+tests/
+  fixtures/          # sample XML documents and PDF fixtures (fixtures/pdf/)
+  test_*.py
+examples/
+  quickstart.py
+```