# Parse > **Universal data parser supporting documents, web content, structured data, emails, code, and media.** --- ## 🎯 Overview
- :material-file-document:{ .lg .middle } **Document Parsing** --- Extract text, tables, and metadata from PDF, DOCX, PPTX, Excel, and TXT - :material-web:{ .lg .middle } **Web Content** --- Parse HTML, XML, and JavaScript-rendered pages with Selenium/Playwright - :material-code-json:{ .lg .middle } **Structured Data** --- Handle JSON, CSV, XML, and YAML with nested structure preservation - :material-email:{ .lg .middle } **Email Parsing** --- Extract headers, bodies, attachments, and thread structure from MIME messages - :material-code-braces:{ .lg .middle } **Code Analysis** --- Parse source code (Python, JS, etc.) into ASTs, extracting functions and dependencies - :material-image:{ .lg .middle } **Media Processing** --- OCR for images and metadata extraction for audio/video files
!!! tip "When to Use" - **Ingestion**: The first step after loading raw files to convert them into usable text/data - **Data Extraction**: Pulling specific fields from structured files (JSON/CSV) - **Content Analysis**: Analyzing codebases or email archives - **OCR**: Extracting text from scanned documents or images --- ## ⚙️ Algorithms Used ### Document Parsing - **PDF**: `pdfplumber` for precise layout preservation, table extraction, and image handling. Fallback to `PyPDF2`. - **Office (DOCX/PPTX/XLSX)**: XML-based parsing of OpenXML formats to extract text, styles, and properties. - **OCR**: Tesseract-based optical character recognition for image-based PDFs and image files. ### Web Parsing - **DOM Traversal**: BeautifulSoup for static HTML parsing and element extraction. - **Headless Browser**: Selenium/Playwright for rendering dynamic JavaScript content before extraction. - **Content Cleaning**: Heuristic removal of boilerplates (navbars, footers, ads). ### Code Parsing - **AST Traversal**: Abstract Syntax Tree parsing to identify classes, functions, and imports. - **Dependency Graphing**: Static analysis of import statements to build dependency networks. - **Comment Extraction**: Regex and parser-based extraction of docstrings and inline comments. --- ## Main Classes ### DocumentParser Unified interface for document formats. **Methods:** | Method | Description | |--------|-------------| | `parse_document(path)` | Auto-detect format and parse | | `extract_text(path)` | Extract text from PDF/DOCX/HTML/TXT | | `extract_metadata(path)` | Extract document metadata | | `parse_batch(paths)` | Parse multiple documents | **Example:** ```python from semantica.parse import DocumentParser parser = DocumentParser() doc = parser.parse_document("report.pdf") print(doc.get("metadata", {}).get("title")) print(doc.get("full_text", "")[:100]) ``` ### WebParser Parses web content. **Methods:** | Method | Description | |--------|-------------| | `parse_web_content(content, content_type)` | Parse HTML/XML | | `extract_text(content)` | Clean text from HTML | | `extract_links(content)` | Extract hyperlinks | | `render_javascript(url)` | Render JS for dynamic pages | ### StructuredDataParser Parses data files. **Methods:** | Method | Description | |--------|-------------| | `parse_data(path, data_format)` | Parse JSON/CSV/XML/YAML | **Example:** ```python from semantica.parse import StructuredDataParser parser = StructuredDataParser() data = parser.parse_data("data.json", data_format="json") print(type(data.get("data"))).__name__ ``` ### CodeParser Parses source code. **Methods:** | Method | Description | |--------|-------------| | `parse_code(path)` | Parse code file; returns structure, comments, dependencies | **Example:** ```python from semantica.parse import CodeParser parser = CodeParser() data = parser.parse_code("script.py", language="python") print(data.get("structure", {}).get("functions", [])) print(data.get("dependencies", {})) ``` ### EmailParser Parses email messages. **Methods:** | Method | Description | |--------|-------------| | `parse_email(path)` | Parse full email (headers/body/attachments) | | `parse_headers(path)` | Extract headers only | | `extract_body(path)` | Extract text/HTML body | | `analyze_thread(path)` | Thread reconstruction | **Example:** ```python from semantica.parse import EmailParser parser = EmailParser() email = parser.parse_email("email.eml", extract_attachments=True) print(email.headers.subject) print(email.body.text[:120]) ``` ### MediaParser Parses media files. **Methods:** | Method | Description | |--------|-------------| | `parse_media(path, media_type)` | Parse image/audio/video | **Example:** ```python from semantica.parse import MediaParser parser = MediaParser() image = parser.parse_media("image.jpg", media_type="image") print(image.get("metadata", {})) ``` ### Format-Specific Parsers - `PDFParser`, `DOCXParser`, `PPTXParser`, `ExcelParser` - `HTMLParser`, `XMLParser` - `JSONParser`, `CSVParser` - `ImageParser` **Examples:** ```python from semantica.parse import DocumentParser, WebParser, StructuredDataParser # Document doc = DocumentParser().parse_document("document.pdf") print(doc.get("full_text", "")[:120]) # Web web = WebParser().parse_web_content("https://example.com", content_type="html") print(web.get("text", "")[:120]) # Structured Data (JSON) data = StructuredDataParser().parse_data("data.json", data_format="json") print(list(data.get("data", {}).keys())) ``` --- ## Usage Examples ### WebParser ```python from semantica.parse import WebParser parser = WebParser() html = parser.parse_web_content("https://example.com", content_type="html") links = parser.extract_links("https://example.com") ``` ### StructuredDataParser ```python from semantica.parse import StructuredDataParser parser = StructuredDataParser() json = parser.parse_data("data.json", data_format="json") csv = parser.parse_data("data.csv", data_format="csv") xml = parser.parse_data("data.xml", data_format="xml") ``` --- ## Configuration ### Environment Variables ```bash export PARSE_OCR_ENABLED=true export PARSE_OCR_LANG=eng export PARSE_USER_AGENT="SemanticaBot/1.0" ``` ### YAML Configuration ```yaml parse: ocr: enabled: true language: eng web: user_agent: "MyBot/1.0" timeout: 30 pdf: extract_tables: true extract_images: false ``` --- ## Integration Use parser classes directly in pipelines and services. Avoid convenience functions for stronger type clarity and consistency. --- ## Best Practices 1. Disable OCR if not needed; enable only for scanned documents. 2. Use specific parser classes like `JSONParser` or `PDFParser` when format is known. 3. Handle encodings explicitly for CSV/TXT where auto-detect may fail. 4. Clean web content using `WebParser` utilities rather than raw HTML parsing. --- ## Troubleshooting **Issue**: `TesseractNotFoundError` **Solution**: Install Tesseract OCR on your system (`apt-get install tesseract-ocr` or brew). **Issue**: PDF tables are messy. **Solution**: Try `pdfplumber` settings in config or use specialized table extraction tools if layout is complex. --- ## See Also - [Ingest Module](ingest.md) - Handles file downloading/loading - [Split Module](split.md) - Chunks the parsed text - [Semantic Extract Module](semantic_extract.md) - Extracts entities from text ## Cookbook - [Document Parsing](https://github.com/Hawksight-AI/semantica/blob/main/cookbook/introduction/03_Document_Parsing.ipynb)