GEDCOM Patcher 2004-08-27 review

GEDCOM Patcher is a perl script is used to tidy up GEDCOM files as exported from various genealogy programs

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 10K Developer: Matthew Gates

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GEDCOM Patcher is a perl script is used to tidy up GEDCOM files as exported from various genealogy programs. The intention is to prepare a GEDCOM file for use with phpGedView.

The problem the program addresses stems from embedding of filenames of external resources such as images. Many genealogy programs insert the full path of such files, and leave whole thing in the GEDCOM file when whey save or export GEDCOM data.

This means that phpGedView gets the wrong file location (since the path to the image on the web server is seldom the same as on the originial machine). This necessitates annoying editing of the GEDCOM file each time it is imported.

The program removes the path of image files, leaving just the filename - the way phpGedView wants it. It will also "sanitize" filenames. phpGedView usually runs on unix like serves (most likely Linux or FreeBSD). While it's possible to have spaces and other "special" characters in file names, it is very ugly, and con confuse phpGedView. When filenames are sanitized, a message is printed to tell the user to rename the file.

OPTIONS:

--char-sub or --nochar-sub

You can choose to use or not use character substitutions. This means that some characters will be removed from external filenames that may cause problems for some programs. For example, the ``&'' symbol is replaced with ``n''.
This option is on by default since it replaces characters that will freak out most web-servers with more rational alternatives.

--debug=level

Print diagnostic messages while executing. The value of level must be an integer. The higher the number, the more verbose the diagnostic output will be.
--help

Print the command line syntax an option details.

--force-jpg or --noforce-jpg

Change extensions for non-jpg image files to be ``jpg''. Of course you'll have to convert the files yourself. Set by default since it makes sense for phpGedView that images are jpg (they'll almost all be photos and you don't want to swamp your web server by sticking on lots of TIFFs or whatever.

--force-lowercase or --noforce-lowercase

Changes external file names to all lowercase. This is on by default. Just a personal preference by the author

--id-in-filename or --noid-in-filename

You can opt to add the ID of an the record that references the external file in the filename. This pretty much guarentees unique names, but may not be to everyone's tastes. On by default.

--output=filename

Write output to filename instead of STDOUT.

--rename-script=s

If defined, we will write a script that will do the renameing of external files.

--verbose ot --noverbose

Turn on/off verbose output.

--version

Print the program description and version.

--zeropad-id=i

When ``id in filename'' is enabled, this will 0-pad the id to improve readability of filename. Off by default.

Requirements:
Perl

What's New in This Release:
Got another gedcom file and so I had to work out how it works again so I wrote some little popd docs.