Metadata-Version: 1.0
Name: TextBase
Version: 0.7
Summary: TextBase library to manipulate DBText style data files.
Home-page: https://github.com/epoz/textbase/
Author: Etienne Posthumus
Author-email: ep@epoz.org
License: UNKNOWN
Description: textbase - A Python library to manipulate Inmagic/DBText style data
        files
        
        What are textbase files?
        ------------------------
        
        A simple format separating data records with a single character
        delimiter, (all files we use have a $ character on a line. For each
        record the fieldname is the first word on the line, usually in upper
        case. Any text following the fieldname is that value for the field.
        Repeating values in a list for the fieldname can be specified on
        consecutive lines using a semicolon. If the text value for a field is
        very long and needs to wrap, start the line with one (or more) spaces.
        
        Why did you re-invent the wheel?
        --------------------------------
        
        We already have CSV files, or JSON files, or YAML, why did you make
        this? Well, I didn't invent this. It is actually a format used by a
        suite of software from InMagic:
        http://www.inmagic.com/products/dbtext-library-suite/
        
        We used the dbText software to create a boatload of data files since the
        early eighties, which is a LONG time ago in Internet-land. Those exact
        same data files are still used to drive a lot of software, and has
        proven to be remarkably useful over the years. Think of it as Markdown
        vs HTML, or as a simpler dataformat with über-simple Key:Value records
        that are human readable.
        
        Example File:
        -------------
        
        ::
        
            FOO A Foo field
            BAR A Baz field with mulitple entries
            ; Another
            ; and yet even more
            $
            FOO This is the FOO field for the next record
            BAR Nothing
        
        The main utitlity class is TextBase. It can be initialised with an open
        file, or a string buffer, named sourcefile. Sourcefile is iterated over,
        splitting the contents into chunks. Each chunk is parsed and added to an
        internal buffer list. The internal buffer contains a dict for each
        record. Each entry in the dict is keyed on the DBText record fieldname,
        the entry itself is a list of the values.
        
        The TextBase object can be used as a generator to iterate over the
        contents, or the Textbase object can be index-addressed like a list.
        
        Example Usage:
        --------------
        
        .. code:: python
        
            import textbase
            t = textbase.TextBase(somebuf)
        
            print len(t)
        
            for x in t[10:20]:
                print x.keys()
        
            print t[0]
        
        If you do not want the records parsed into Python dictionaries and just
        want to muck about with the records as text blobs, initialise like this:
        
        .. code:: python
        
              t = textbase.TextBase(somebuf, parse=False)
        
        Author: Etienne Posthumus Mail: ep@epoz.org
        
Platform: UNKNOWN
