imposm.parser is a Python library that parses OpenStreetMap data in XML and PBF format.

It has a simple API and it is fast and easy to use. It also works across multiple CPU/cores for extra speed.

It is developed and supported by Omniscale and released under the Apache Software License 2.0.

Here is an example that parses an OSM file and counts all ways that are tagged as a highway.

from imposm.parser import OSMParser

# simple class that handles the parsed OSM data.
class HighwayCounter(object):
    highways = 0

    def ways(self, ways):
        # callback method for ways
        for osmid, tags, refs in ways:
            if 'highway' in tags:
              self.highways += 1

# instantiate counter and parser and start parsing
counter = HighwayCounter()
p = OSMParser(concurrency=4, ways_callback=counter.ways)
p.parse('germany.osm.pbf')

# done
print counter.highways

Source code and issue tracker are available at https://github.com/omniscale/imposm-parser.