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High-performance HTML5 parser for Ruby based on Lexbor, with support for both CSS selectors and XPath.

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Nokolexbor

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Nokolexbor is a drop-in replacement for Nokogiri. It's 5.2x faster at parsing HTML and up to 997x faster at CSS selectors.

It's a performance-focused HTML5 parser for Ruby based on Lexbor. It supports both CSS selectors and XPath. Nokolexbor's API is designed to be 1:1 compatible as much as possible with Nokogiri's API.

Requirements

Nokolexbor is shipped with pre-compiled gems on most common platforms:

  • Linux: x86_64, with glibc >= 2.17
  • macOS: x86_64 and arm64
  • Windows: ucrt64, mingw32 and mingw64

If you are on a supported platform, just jump to the Installation section. Otherwise, you need to install CMake to compile C extensions:

macOS

brew install cmake

Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, etc.)

sudo apt-get install cmake

Installation

Add to your Gemfile:

gem 'nokolexbor'

Then, run bundle install.

Or, install the gem directly:

gem install nokolexbor

Quick start

require 'nokolexbor'
require 'open-uri'

# Parse HTML document
doc = Nokolexbor::HTML(URI.open('https://github.com/serpapi/nokolexbor'))

# Search for nodes by css
doc.css('#readme h1', 'article h2', 'p[dir=auto]').each do |node|
  puts node.content
end

# Search for text nodes by css
doc.css('#readme p > ::text').each do |text|
  puts text.content
end

# Search for nodes by xpath
doc.xpath('//div[@id="readme"]//h1', '//article//h2').each do |node|
  puts node.content
end

Features

  • Nokogiri-compatible APIs.
  • High performance HTML parsing, DOM manipulation and CSS selectors engine.
  • XPath search engine (ported from libxml2).
  • Text nodes CSS selector support: ::text.

Searching methods overview

  • css and at_css
    • Based on Lexbor.
    • Only accepts CSS selectors, doesn't support mixed syntax like div#abc /text().
    • To select text nodes, use pseudo element ::text. e.g. div#abc > ::text.
    • Performance is much higher than libxml2 based methods.
  • xpath and at_xpath
    • Based on libxml2.
    • Only accepts XPath syntax.
    • Works in the same way as Nokogiri's xpath and at_xpath.
  • nokogiri_css and nokogiri_at_css (requires Nokogiri installed)
    • Based on libxml2.
    • Accept mixed syntax like div#abc /text().
    • Works in the same way as Nokogiri's css and at_css.

Different behaviors from Nokogiri

  • For selector :nth-of-type(n), n is not affected by prior filter. For example, if we want to select the 3rd div excluding class a and class b, which will be the last div in the following HTML:

    <body>
      <div></div>
      <div class="a"></div>
      <div class="b"></div>
      <div></div>
      <div></div>
    </body>
    

    In Nokogiri, the selector should be div:not(.a):not(.b):nth-of-type(3)

    In Nokolexbor, :not does affect the place of the last div (same in browsers), the selector should be div:not(.a):not(.b):nth-of-type(5), but this losts the purpose of filtering though.

Benchmarks

Benchmark parsing google result page (368 KB) and selecting nodes using CSS and XPath. Run on MacBook Pro (2019) 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9.

Run with: ruby bench/bench.rb

Nokolexbor (iters/s) Nokogiri (iters/s) Diff
parsing 487.6 93.5 5.22x faster
at_css 50798.8 50.9 997.87x faster
css 7437.6 52.3 142.11x faster
at_xpath 57.077 53.176 same-ish
xpath 51.523 58.438 same-ish
Raw data
Warming up --------------------------------------
    Nokolexbor parse    56.000  i/100ms
      Nokogiri parse     8.000  i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
    Nokolexbor parse    487.564  (±10.9%) i/s -      9.688k in  20.117173s
      Nokogiri parse     93.470  (±21.4%) i/s -      1.736k in  20.024163s

Comparison:
    Nokolexbor parse:      487.6 i/s
      Nokogiri parse:       93.5 i/s - 5.22x  (± 0.00) slower

Warming up --------------------------------------
   Nokolexbor at_css     5.548k i/100ms
     Nokogiri at_css     6.000  i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
   Nokolexbor at_css     50.799k (±13.8%) i/s -    987.544k in  20.018481s
     Nokogiri at_css     50.907  (±35.4%) i/s -    828.000  in  20.666258s

Comparison:
   Nokolexbor at_css:    50798.8 i/s
     Nokogiri at_css:       50.9 i/s - 997.87x  (± 0.00) slower

Warming up --------------------------------------
      Nokolexbor css   709.000  i/100ms
        Nokogiri css     4.000  i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
      Nokolexbor css      7.438k (±14.7%) i/s -    145.345k in  20.083833s
        Nokogiri css     52.338  (±36.3%) i/s -    816.000  in  20.042053s

Comparison:
      Nokolexbor css:     7437.6 i/s
        Nokogiri css:       52.3 i/s - 142.11x  (± 0.00) slower

Warming up --------------------------------------
 Nokolexbor at_xpath     2.000  i/100ms
   Nokogiri at_xpath     4.000  i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
 Nokolexbor at_xpath     57.077  (±31.5%) i/s -    920.000  in  20.156393s
   Nokogiri at_xpath     53.176  (±35.7%) i/s -    876.000  in  20.036717s

Comparison:
 Nokolexbor at_xpath:       57.1 i/s
   Nokogiri at_xpath:       53.2 i/s - same-ish: difference falls within error

Warming up --------------------------------------
    Nokolexbor xpath     3.000  i/100ms
      Nokogiri xpath     3.000  i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
    Nokolexbor xpath     51.523  (±31.1%) i/s -    903.000  in  20.102568s
      Nokogiri xpath     58.438  (±35.9%) i/s -    852.000  in  20.001408s

Comparison:
      Nokogiri xpath:       58.4 i/s
    Nokolexbor xpath:       51.5 i/s - same-ish: difference falls within error

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High-performance HTML5 parser for Ruby based on Lexbor, with support for both CSS selectors and XPath.

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