pugixml is a light-weight C++ XML processing library. It consists of a DOM-like interface with rich traversal/modification capabilities, an extremely fast XML parser which constructs the DOM tree from an XML file/buffer, and an XPath 1.0 implementation for complex data-driven tree queries. Full Unicode support is also available, with two Unicode interface variants and conversions between different Unicode encodings (which happen automatically during parsing/saving). The library is extremely portable and easy to integrate and use. pugixml is developed and maintained since 2006 and has many users. All code is distributed under the MIT license, making it completely free to use in both open-source and proprietary applications.

pugixml enables very fast, convenient and memory-efficient XML document processing. However, since pugixml has a DOM parser, it can't process XML documents that do not fit in memory; also the parser is a non-validating one, so if you need DTD or XML Schema validation, the library is not for you.

This is the complete manual for pugixml, which describes all features of the library in detail. If you want to start writing code as quickly as possible, you are advised to read the quick start guide first.

	Note
	No documentation is perfect, neither is this one. If you encounter a description that is unclear, please file an issue as described in Feedback. Also if you can spare the time for a full proof-reading, including spelling and grammar, that would be great! Please send me an e-mail; as a token of appreciation, your name will be included into the corresponding section of this documentation.

If you believe you've found a bug in pugixml (bugs include compilation problems (errors/warnings), crashes, performance degradation and incorrect behavior), please file an issue via issue submission form. Be sure to include the relevant information so that the bug can be reproduced: the version of pugixml, compiler version and target architecture, the code that uses pugixml and exhibits the bug, etc.

Feature requests can be reported the same way as bugs, so if you're missing some functionality in pugixml or if the API is rough in some places and you can suggest an improvement, file an issue. However please note that there are many factors when considering API changes (compatibility with previous versions, API redundancy, etc.), so generally features that can be implemented via a small function without pugixml modification are not accepted. However, all rules have exceptions.

If you have a contribution to pugixml, such as build script for some build system/IDE, or a well-designed set of helper functions, or a binding to some language other than C++, please file an issue. You can include the relevant patches as issue attachments. Your contribution has to be distributed under the terms of a license that's compatible with pugixml license; i.e. GPL/LGPL licensed code is not accepted.

If filing an issue is not possible due to privacy or other concerns, you can contact pugixml author by e-mail directly: arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com.

pugixml could not be developed without the help from many people; some of them are listed in this section. If you've played a part in pugixml development and you can not find yourself on this list, I'm truly sorry; please send me an e-mail so I can fix this.

Thanks to Kristen Wegner for pugxml parser, which was used as a basis for pugixml.

Thanks to Neville Franks for contributions to pugxml parser.

Thanks to Artyom Palvelev for suggesting a lazy gap contraction approach.

Thanks to Vyacheslav Egorov for documentation proofreading.

The pugixml library is distributed under the MIT license:

This means that you can freely use pugixml in your applications, both open-source and proprietary. If you use pugixml in a product, it is sufficient to add an acknowledgment like this to the product distribution: