Repository: deepset-ai/haystack

Issue:
feat: Add split by `page` to `DocumentSplitter`
**Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.**
There are some cases where we would like to be able to split the contents of a PDF by page. Either to keep all text from a single page as a document to help preserve context or to be able to perform two sets of chunking (i.e. split by page, followed up by split by sentence). I would not say this is a common set up, but I believe we can straightforwardly extend the `DocumentSplitter` to have this flexibility. 

**Describe the solution you'd like**
Add a new `split_by` value of `page` that would split on `"\f"`.

**Describe alternatives you've considered**
Split up the source file (e.g. a PDF) into individual pages before feeding it into the Haystack pipeline. Definitely doable, but less elegant than having the `DocumentSplitter` being able to handle this.  



Discussion:
Hello @sjrl, 

I gave it a try and found out that new page in was marked by `\x0c`, Do you have any suggestions on how should I proceed further. Do you think I should include both `\f` and `\x0c` for splitting?
Hey @sahusiddharth thanks for taking a look at this! `\f` and `\x0c` are the same thing. Take a look at this stack overflow [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26184100/how-does-v-differ-from-x0b-or-x0c) and the example image below. So you would only need to split on `\f` in your code. 

<img width="155" alt="Screenshot 2024-01-17 at 09 12 28" src="https://github.com/deepset-ai/haystack/assets/10526848/e0382717-901f-43e2-b718-bcf91999a855">

@sjrl I have made a PR can you please have a look into it and do let me know if anything needs to be changed.




Patch:
diff --git a/haystack/components/preprocessors/document_splitter.py b/haystack/components/preprocessors/document_splitter.py
index 57531b73c1..4649c7f5d4 100644
--- a/haystack/components/preprocessors/document_splitter.py
+++ b/haystack/components/preprocessors/document_splitter.py
@@ -14,18 +14,21 @@ class DocumentSplitter:
     """
 
     def __init__(
-        self, split_by: Literal["word", "sentence", "passage"] = "word", split_length: int = 200, split_overlap: int = 0
+        self,
+        split_by: Literal["word", "sentence", "page", "passage"] = "word",
+        split_length: int = 200,
+        split_overlap: int = 0,
     ):
         """
         :param split_by: The unit by which the document should be split. Choose from "word" for splitting by " ",
-        "sentence" for splitting by ".", or "passage" for splitting by "\\n\\n".
+        "sentence" for splitting by ".", "page" for splitting by "\f" or "passage" for splitting by "\\n\\n".
         :param split_length: The maximum number of units in each split.
         :param split_overlap: The number of units that each split should overlap.
         """
 
         self.split_by = split_by
-        if split_by not in ["word", "sentence", "passage"]:
-            raise ValueError("split_by must be one of 'word', 'sentence' or 'passage'.")
+        if split_by not in ["word", "sentence", "page", "passage"]:
+            raise ValueError("split_by must be one of 'word', 'sentence', 'page' or 'passage'.")
         if split_length <= 0:
             raise ValueError("split_length must be greater than 0.")
         self.split_length = split_length
@@ -60,8 +63,10 @@ def run(self, documents: List[Document]):
             split_docs += [Document(content=txt, meta=metadata) for txt in text_splits]
         return {"documents": split_docs}
 
-    def _split_into_units(self, text: str, split_by: Literal["word", "sentence", "passage"]) -> List[str]:
-        if split_by == "passage":
+    def _split_into_units(self, text: str, split_by: Literal["word", "sentence", "passage", "page"]) -> List[str]:
+        if split_by == "page":
+            split_at = "\f"
+        elif split_by == "passage":
             split_at = "\n\n"
         elif split_by == "sentence":
             split_at = "."
@@ -69,7 +74,7 @@ def _split_into_units(self, text: str, split_by: Literal["word", "sentence", "pa
             split_at = " "
         else:
             raise NotImplementedError(
-                "DocumentSplitter only supports 'passage', 'sentence' or 'word' split_by options."
+                "DocumentSplitter only supports 'word', 'sentence', 'page' or 'passage' split_by options."
             )
         units = text.split(split_at)
         # Add the delimiter back to all units except the last one
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/add-split-by-page-to-DocumentSplitter-63232c17d858d787.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/add-split-by-page-to-DocumentSplitter-63232c17d858d787.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..3fccae32cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/add-split-by-page-to-DocumentSplitter-63232c17d858d787.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+---
+enhancements:
+  - |
+    Added split by page to DocumentSplitter, which will split the document at \f


Test patch:
diff --git a/test/components/preprocessors/test_document_splitter.py b/test/components/preprocessors/test_document_splitter.py
index b99e3be2d3..479f0d50ce 100644
--- a/test/components/preprocessors/test_document_splitter.py
+++ b/test/components/preprocessors/test_document_splitter.py
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ def test_empty_list(self):
         assert res == {"documents": []}
 
     def test_unsupported_split_by(self):
-        with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="split_by must be one of 'word', 'sentence' or 'passage'."):
+        with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="split_by must be one of 'word', 'sentence', 'page' or 'passage'."):
             DocumentSplitter(split_by="unsupported")
 
     def test_unsupported_split_length(self):
@@ -94,6 +94,20 @@ def test_split_by_passage(self):
         assert result["documents"][1].content == "And there is a third sentence.\n\n"
         assert result["documents"][2].content == " And another passage."
 
+    def test_split_by_page(self):
+        splitter = DocumentSplitter(split_by="page", split_length=1)
+        result = splitter.run(
+            documents=[
+                Document(
+                    content="This is a text with some words. There is a second sentence.\f And there is a third sentence.\f And another passage."
+                )
+            ]
+        )
+        assert len(result["documents"]) == 3
+        assert result["documents"][0].content == "This is a text with some words. There is a second sentence.\x0c"
+        assert result["documents"][1].content == " And there is a third sentence.\x0c"
+        assert result["documents"][2].content == " And another passage."
+
     def test_split_by_word_with_overlap(self):
         splitter = DocumentSplitter(split_by="word", split_length=10, split_overlap=2)
         result = splitter.run(