tinyxml2-rs

A ground-up Rust implementation of the TinyXML2 API.

What is tinyxml2-rs?

tinyxml2-rs is a native Rust implementation that provides behavioral and API compatibility with TinyXML-2. It treats TinyXML-2 as a behavioral specification — not as source code to translate.

What it IS

• ✅ A ground-up Rust implementation of the TinyXML2 API surface
• ✅ Behaviorally compatible with TinyXML2 (same inputs produce same outputs)
• ✅ Written in safe, idiomatic Rust with an arena-based DOM
• ✅ A C FFI layer for drop-in replacement in C/C++ projects
• ✅ Lightweight, fast, and suitable for embedded or resource-constrained environments

What it is NOT

• ❌ Not a wrapper around the C++ TinyXML2 library
• ❌ Not a line-by-line translation of the C++ source
• ❌ Not a full XML specification implementation — it targets the same subset as TinyXML2
• ❌ Not a streaming parser — it builds an in-memory DOM, just like TinyXML2

Quick Start

Add tinyxml2 to your project:

cargo add tinyxml2

Parsing XML and Navigating the DOM

use tinyxml2::Document;

fn main() {
    let xml = r#"
        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
        <bookstore>
            <book category="fiction">
                <title lang="en">The Great Gatsby</title>
                <author>F. Scott Fitzgerald</author>
                <year>1925</year>
                <price>10.99</price>
            </book>
            <book category="nonfiction">
                <title lang="en">Sapiens</title>
                <author>Yuval Noah Harari</author>
                <year>2011</year>
                <price>14.99</price>
            </book>
        </bookstore>
    "#;

    // Parse the document
    let doc = Document::parse(xml).expect("Failed to parse XML");

    // Navigate to the root element
    let root = doc.root_element().expect("No root element");
    assert_eq!(root.name(), "bookstore");

    // Iterate over child elements
    for book in root.children_with_name("book") {
        let category = book.attribute("category").unwrap_or("unknown");
        let title = book.first_child_element_with_name("title")
            .and_then(|t| t.text())
            .unwrap_or("untitled");
        println!("{title} ({category})");
    }
}

Writing XML

use tinyxml2::Document;

fn main() {
    let mut doc = Document::new();

    let root = doc.new_element("config");
    doc.insert_end_child(root);

    let setting = doc.new_element("setting");
    setting.set_attribute("name", "volume");
    setting.set_attribute("value", "75");
    root.insert_end_child(setting);

    // Print compact XML
    let output = doc.to_string_compact();
    println!("{output}");

    // Print formatted XML
    let output = doc.to_string_pretty();
    println!("{output}");
}

Features

Architecture

tinyxml2-rs is organized as a Cargo workspace with three crates:

tinyxml2-rs/
├── crates/
│   ├── tinyxml2/          # Core library — DOM, parser, writer, entities, errors
│   ├── tinyxml2-capi/     # C FFI compatibility layer (cdylib + staticlib)
│   └── tinyxml2-bench/    # Benchmark harness (criterion)
├── tests/                 # Integration & conformance tests
├── fuzz/                  # Fuzz testing targets
├── benches/               # Benchmark data & fixtures
├── spec/                  # TinyXML2 behavioral specification tests
└── examples/              # Usage examples

For a deep dive, see ARCHITECTURE.md.

Compatibility with TinyXML2

tinyxml2-rs aims for behavioral compatibility with TinyXML2:

• Parsing: Same documents accepted/rejected; same error conditions
• DOM API: Equivalent navigation, mutation, and query operations
• Output: Byte-identical output in both compact and pretty-print modes
• Entity handling: Same set of predefined XML entities
• Error semantics: Equivalent error codes and failure modes

Compatibility is verified through a conformance test suite derived from TinyXML2's own tests and additional edge-case coverage.

Performance Goals

• Parsing throughput competitive with or exceeding TinyXML2 (C++)
• Memory usage within 1.5× of TinyXML2 for equivalent documents
• Zero-copy string handling where possible
• Cache-friendly arena layout for DOM traversal
• No allocations on the hot path during parsing

Benchmarks are tracked in crates/tinyxml2-bench/ using Criterion.

Project Status

Phase 4 — Writer / Serializer (planned)

tinyxml2-rs is under active development. The core DOM representation and recursive-descent parser are fully implemented. See ROADMAP.md for the full development plan.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting a pull request.

We follow the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct.

Security

To report a security vulnerability, please see SECURITY.md. Do not open a public issue.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.

Copyright (c) 2026 Teebot