Modules¶

The lexbor project is designed with a modular architecture, where each module can be built and used independently or as part of the complete engine. This approach provides flexibility — you can use only the components you need, keeping your application lightweight and focused.

Modular Design Philosophy¶

Lexbor is built around the idea that you should use only what you need. Each module is designed to work independently, so you can include just the HTML parser without dragging in CSS parsing, or use the Encoding module on its own without any HTML dependencies.

This architecture offers several practical benefits:

Self-contained — Each module has its own version and configuration, and can be built separately. You get clean separation without unnecessary coupling.
Standards-compliant — Every module strictly implements WHATWG and W3C specifications. If a browser does it, lexbor does it the same way.
Flexible integration — Use any combination of modules that fits your needs. The HTML parser works great on its own, or pair it with CSS and Selectors for more advanced use cases.

Module Location¶

All modules are located in the source/lexbor/ directory of the project. Each module has:

A base.h file with version information and type definitions
A config.cmake file for build configuration
Implementation files (.c) and headers (.h)

Available Modules¶

Production-Ready Modules¶

These modules are stable, fully tested, and ready for production use:

Module	Version	Specification	Description
Core	2.7.0	—	Base algorithms and memory management
HTML	2.8.0	WHATWG HTML	Full HTML parser
DOM	2.0.0	WHATWG DOM	DOM tree manipulation
CSS	1.4.0	CSS	CSS parser and CSS modules
Selectors	0.5.0	CSS Selectors Level 4	CSS selectors engine
Encoding	2.2.0	WHATWG Encoding	40+ character encodings
URL	0.4.0	WHATWG URL	URL parsing and manipulation
Unicode	0.5.0	Unicode TR#15, TR#46	Normalization and IDNA
Punycode	—	RFC 3492	Punycode encoding/decoding

Supporting Modules¶

These modules provide internal functionality and are typically used by other modules:

Module	Description
NS	Namespace handling (HTML, SVG, MathML, XLink, XML, XMLNS)
Tag	HTML and SVG tag definitions and lookup
Style	CSS Style event handling and integration. Combines HTML and CSS
Ports	Platform-specific implementations
Utils	Utility functions and helpers

Modules in Development¶

Module	Status	Description
Layout	🚧 In progress	CSS layout engine (currently at rendering tree stage)
Fonts	🚧 Planned	Font parsing and text rendering
Engine	🚧 Planned	Full browser engine integration

Module Versioning¶

Each module maintains its own version number. Versions follow semantic versioning:

Major — breaking API changes
Minor — new features, backward compatible
Patch — bug fixes, backward compatible

#include <lexbor/html/base.h>

printf("HTML module version: %s\n", LXB_HTML_VERSION_STRING);
printf("Core version: %s\n", LEXBOR_VERSION_STRING);

Or:

printf("Core version: %d.%d.%d\n",
       LEXBOR_VERSION_MAJOR,
       LEXBOR_VERSION_MINOR,
       LEXBOR_VERSION_PATCH);

(Documentation is currently being developed, details will be available here soon.)