Is there a GEDCOM parser written in Python?

Question

GEDCOM is a standard for exchanging genealogical data.

I've found parsers written in

• C
• perl
• Ruby
• and even Factor

but none so far written in Python. The closest I've come is the file _GedcomParse.py from the GRAMPS project, but that is so full of references to GRAMPS modules as to not be usable for me.

I just want a simple standalone GEDCOM parser library written in Python. Does this exist?

Answer 1

You could use the SWIG tool for including C libraries though the native language interface. You'll have to make calls against the C api from within Python, but the rest of your code can be Python only.

May sound a bit daunting, but once you get thing setup, using the two together won't be bad. There may be some quirks depending how the C library was written, but you'd have to deal with some no matter which option you used.

Answer 2

A few years ago I wrote a simplistic GEDCOM to XML translator in Python as part of a larger project. I found that dealing with the GEDCOM data in an XML format was much easier (especially when the next step involved XSLT).

I don't have the code online at the moment, so I've pasted the module into this message. This works for me; no guarantees. Hope this helps though.

import codecs, os, re, sys
from xml.sax.saxutils import escape

fn = sys.argv[1]

ged = codecs.open(fn, encoding="cp437")
xml = codecs.open(fn+".xml", "w", "utf8")
xml.write("""<?xml version="1.0"?>\n""")
xml.write("<gedcom>")
sub = []
for s in ged:
    s = s.strip()
    m = re.match(r"(\d+) (@(\w+)@ )?(\w+)( (.*))?", s)
    if m is None:
        print "Error: unmatched line:", s
    level = int(m.group(1))
    id = m.group(3)
    tag = m.group(4)
    data = m.group(6)
    while len(sub) > level:
        xml.write("</%s>\n" % (sub[-1]))
        sub.pop()
    if level != len(sub):
        print "Error: unexpected level:", s
    sub += [tag]
    if id is not None:
        xml.write("<%s id=\"%s\">" % (tag, id))
    else:
        xml.write("<%s>" % (tag))
    if data is not None:
        m = re.match(r"@(\w+)@", data)
        if m:
            xml.write(m.group(1))
        elif tag == "NAME":
            m = re.match(r"(.*?)/(.*?)/$", data)
            if m:
                xml.write("<forename>%s</forename><surname>%s</surname>" % (escape(m.group(1).strip()), escape(m.group(2))))
            else:
                xml.write(escape(data))
        elif tag == "DATE":
            m = re.match(r"(((\d+)?\s+)?(\w+)?\s+)?(\d{3,})", data)
            if m:
                if m.group(3) is not None:
                    xml.write("<day>%s</day><month>%s</month><year>%s</year>" % (m.group(3), m.group(4), m.group(5)))
                elif m.group(4) is not None:
                    xml.write("<month>%s</month><year>%s</year>" % (m.group(4), m.group(5)))
                else:
                    xml.write("<year>%s</year>" % m.group(5))
            else:
                xml.write(escape(data))
        else:
            xml.write(escape(data))
while len(sub) > 0:
    xml.write("</%s>" % sub[-1])
    sub.pop()
xml.write("</gedcom>\n")
ged.close()
xml.close()

Answer 3

A general-purpose GEDCOM parser in Python is linked from http://ilab.cs.byu.edu/cs460/2006w/assignments/program1.html

Answer 4

I've taken code from mwhite's answer, extended it a bit (OK, more than just a bit) and posted at github: http://github.com/dijxtra/simplepyged. I take suggestions about what else to add :-)