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User Manual for Gramps - a GTK+/GNOME based genealogy program
Copyright (C) 2003 Alexander Roitman
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document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
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<!-- =============== Appendices Subsection ================ -->
<sect2 id="append-cmdline">
<title>Command line reference</title>
<para>This appendix provides the reference to the command line
capabilities available when launching &app; from the terminal. </para>
<para>Let us note here that &app; was designed to be an interactive
program. Therefore it uses graphical display and cannot run from the
true non-graphical console. It would take an enormous amount of effort
to enable it to run in a text-only terminal. This is why the set of
command line options does not aim to completely get rid of dependency
on the graphical display. Rather, it merely makes certain (typical) tasks
more convenient. It also allows one to execute these tasks from the scripts.
However, the graphical display must be accessible at all times!
</para>
<para>To summarize, the use of the command line options provides
non-interactive behavior, but does not get rid of graphical display
dependency. Take it or leave it!
</para>
<sect3 id="cmdline-options">
<title>Available options</title>
<para>Here is the list of the command line options in &app;:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>Format options</term>
<listitem><para> The format of any file destined for import or export
can be specified with the
<command>-f</command> <replaceable>format</replaceable>
option. The <replaceable>format</replaceable> can be one of the
following:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>gramps</term>
<listitem><para> &app; database. This format is available
for both import and export. When not specified, it can be
guessed if the filename represents a directory.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>gedcom</term>
<listitem><para> GEDCOM file. This format is available
for both import and export. When not specified, it can be
guessed if the filename ends with .ged
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>gramps-pkg</term>
<listitem><para> &app; package. This format is available
for both import and export. When not specified, it can be
guessed if the filename ends with .tgz
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>wft</term>
<listitem><para> Web Family Tree. This format is available
for export only. When not specified, it can be guessed
if the filename ends with .wft
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>iso</term>
<listitem><para> CD image. This format is available
for export only. It must always be specified explicitly.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Import options</term>
<listitem><para> The files destined for import can be specified with
the
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>filename</replaceable>
option. The format can be specified with the <command>-f</command>
option immediately following the <replaceable>filename</replaceable>.
If not specified, the guess will be attempted based on
the <replaceable>filename</replaceable>. For <term>gramps</term>
format, the <replaceable>filename</replaceable> is actually the
name of directory under which the gramps database resides. For
<term>gedcom</term> and <term>gramps-pkg</term>, the
<replaceable>filename</replaceable> is the name of the
corresponding file.
</para>
<para>When more than one input file is given, each has to be preceded
by <command>-i</command> flag. The files are imported in the
specified order, i.e.
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file1</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file2</replaceable>
and
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file2</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file1</replaceable>
might produce different gramps IDs in the resulting database.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Export options</term>
<listitem><para> The files destined for export can be specified with
the
<command>-o</command> <replaceable>filename</replaceable>
option. The format can be specified with the <command>-f</command>
option immediately following the <replaceable>filename</replaceable>.
If not specified, the guess will be attempted based on
the <replaceable>filename</replaceable>. For <term>gramps</term>
and <term>iso</term> formats, the <replaceable>filename</replaceable>
is actually the name of directory the gramps database will be written
into. For <term>gedcom</term>, <term>wft</term>,
and <term>gramps-pkg</term>, the <replaceable>filename</replaceable>
is the name of the resulting file.
</para>
<para> When more than one output file is given, each has to be
preceded by <command>-o</command> flag. The files are written one
by one, in the specified order.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Action options</term>
<listitem><para> The action to perform on the imported data can be
specified with the
<command>-a</command> <replaceable>action</replaceable>
option. This is done after all imports are successfully completed.
Currently available actions are <term>summary</term> (same as
<menuchoice><guimenu>Reports</guimenu><guisubmenu>View</guisubmenu>
<guimenuitem>Summary</guimenuitem></menuchoice>)
and <term>check</term> (same as
<menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu>
<guisubmenu>Database Processing</guisubmenu>
<guimenuitem>Check and Repair</guimenuitem></menuchoice>).
</para>
<para>When more than one output action is given, each has to be
preceded by <command>-a</command> flag. The actions are performed
one by one, in the specified order.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="cmdline-operation">
<title>Operation</title>
<para>The order of <command>-i</command>, <command>-o</command>,
or <command>-a</command> options with respect to each does not matter.
The actual execution order always is: all imports (if any) -> all
exports (if any) -> all actions (if any).</para>
<para>If no <command>-i</command> option is given, gramps will launch
its main window and start the usual interactive session with the empty
database (since there is no data to process, anyway).</para>
<para>If no <command>-o</command> or <command>-a</command> options
are given, gramps will launch its main window and start the usual
interactive session with the database resulted from all imports.
This database resides under
<replaceable>~/.gramps/import</replaceable> directory.</para>
<para>Any errors encountered during import, export, or action, will
be either dumped to stdout (if these are exceptions handled by gramps)
or or to stderr (if these are not handled). Use usual shell redirections
of stdout and stderr to save messages and errors in files.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="cmdline-examples">
<title>Examples</title>
<para>To import four databases (whose formats can be determined from
their names) and then check the resulting database for errors, one may
type:</para>
<para><command>gramps -i</command> <replaceable>file1.ged</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file2.tgz</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>~/db3</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file4.wft</replaceable>
<command>-a</command> <replaceable>check</replaceable>
</para>
<para>To explicitly specify the formats in the above example, append
filenames with appropriate <command>-f</command> options:</para>
<para><command>gramps -i</command> <replaceable>file1.ged</replaceable>
<command>-f</command> <replaceable>gedcom</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file2.tgz</replaceable>
<command>-f</command> <replaceable>gramps-pkg</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>~/db3</replaceable>
<command>-f</command> <replaceable>gramps</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file4.wft</replaceable>
<command>-f</command> <replaceable>wft</replaceable>
<command>-a</command> <replaceable>check</replaceable>
</para>
<para>To record the database resulting from all imports, supply
<command>-o</command> flag (use <command>-f</command>
if the filename does not allow gramps to guess the format):</para>
<para><command>gramps -i</command> <replaceable>file1.ged</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file2.tgz</replaceable>
<command>-o</command> <replaceable>~/new-package</replaceable>
<command>-f</command> <replaceable>gramps-pkg</replaceable>
</para>
<para>To save any error messages of the above example into files
<replaceable>outfile</replaceable> and
<replaceable>errfile</replaceable>, run:</para>
<para><command>gramps -i</command> <replaceable>file1.ged</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file2.tgz</replaceable>
<command>-o</command> <replaceable>~/new-package</replaceable>
<command>-f</command> <replaceable>gramps-pkg</replaceable>
><replaceable>outfile</replaceable>
2><replaceable>errfile</replaceable>
</para>
<para>To import three databases and start interactive gramps
session with the result:</para>
<para><command>gramps -i</command> <replaceable>file1.ged</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>file2.tgz</replaceable>
<command>-i</command> <replaceable>~/db3</replaceable>
</para>
<para>Finally, to start normal interactive session type:</para>
<para> <command>gramps </command></para>
</sect3>
</sect2>