From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: jemarch@gnu.org (Jose E. Marchesi) Subject: [OT] recutils Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2010 22:16:57 +0100 Message-ID: <874oauh7zq.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=60861 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1POd4w-0004la-DU for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:22:07 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1POd4v-0005At-Ae for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:22:06 -0500 Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:52828) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1POd4v-0005Ak-96 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:22:05 -0500 Received: from p4ffd17f9.dip.t-dialin.net ([79.253.23.249]:38933 helo=termi.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpa (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1POd4s-0002PR-FU for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:22:02 -0500 List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hi. I apologize in advance for the off-topic, but this could be of interest to people liking to "organize their life" in plain text. This is about "storing your data" in plain text :D I just made the first release of the GNU recutils, a set of tools and libraries to access human-editable, text-based databases called recfiles. The data is stored as a sequence of records, each record containing an arbitrary number of named fields. Advanced capabilities usually found in other data storage systems are supported by GNU recutils: data types, data integrity (keys, mandatory fields, etc) as well as the ability of records to refer to other records (sort of foreign keys). Despite its simplicity, recfiles can be used to store medium-sized databases. I have been using org-mode for years and it rocks. In some way it changed my life. It is perfect to store all kind of hierarchical data. At some point I though about applying a similar philosophy to "sequential" repetitive data with relationships. Data that we would store in a relational database. A nice complement to org. The recutils are the result of those thoughts. I would highly appreciate any comment or suggestion on improving the format, the utilities, or whatever. Please see the GNU recutils homepage for more information: http://www.gnu.org/software/recutils (due to the crack of savannah the webpages replication facility is not yet working, so the page there is old and does not reflect the release). The tarball can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/recutils/recutils-1.0.tar.gz The GNU recutils suite comprises: - A texinfo manual, describing the Rec format and the accompaying software. - A C library (librec) that provides a rich set of functions to manipulate rec data. - A set of C utilities that can be used in shell scripts and in the command line to operate on rec files: + `recinf' prints information about the contents of recfiles. + `recsel' prints records and field values. + `recins' adds new records to a recfile. + `recdel' deletes records. + `recset' manipulates fields. + `recfix' checks and fixes recfiles. + `csv2rec' converts comma-separated-values files to recfiles. + `mdb2rec' converts mdb files (used by MS-Access) to recfiles. - rec-mode.el - An emacs mode to edit and navigate recfiles. Still experimental and without a manual. Whatever... sorry for the spam! XD -- Jose E. Marchesi jemarch@gnu.org GNU Project http://www.gnu.org