improve empty document handling

Author: OGuggenbuehl

haystack/components/preprocessors/markdown_header_splitter.py

@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ def __init__(
         split_length: int = 200,
         split_overlap: int = 0,
         split_threshold: int = 0,
+        skip_empty_documents: bool = True,
     ):
         """
         Initialize the MarkdownHeaderSplitter.
@@ -59,13 +60,16 @@ def __init__(
         :param split_overlap: The number of overlapping units for each split when using secondary splitting.
             Defaults to 0.
         :param split_threshold: The minimum number of units per split when using secondary splitting. Defaults to 0.
+        :param skip_empty_documents: If True, skip documents with empty content. If False, process empty documents.
+            Defaults to True.
         """
         self.infer_header_levels = infer_header_levels
         self.page_break_character = page_break_character
         self.secondary_split = secondary_split
         self.split_length = split_length
         self.split_overlap = split_overlap
         self.split_threshold = split_threshold
+        self.skip_empty_documents = skip_empty_documents
         self._header_pattern = r"(?m)^(#{1,6}) (.+)$"  # ATX-style .md-headers
 
         # initialize secondary_splitter only if needed
@@ -393,9 +397,16 @@ def run(self, documents: list[Document], infer_header_levels: Optional[bool] = N
 
         processed_documents = []
         for doc in documents:
-            # skip empty documents
+            # handle empty documents
             if not doc.content or not doc.content.strip():
-                continue
+                if self.skip_empty_documents:
+                    logger.warning("Document ID {doc_id} has an empty content. Skipping this document.", doc_id=doc.id)
+                    continue
+                else:
+                    # keep empty documents
+                    processed_documents.append(doc)
+                    continue
+
             if infer_header_levels:
                 content = self._infer_header_levels(doc.content, doc_id=doc.id)
                 processed_documents.append(Document(content=content, meta=doc.meta, id=doc.id))