USFM Codes
Unified Standard Format Markers are a system of short alphanumeric markers (which follow backslashes in text files) used by UBS and SIL to encode Bible translations. Each book is usually stored in a separate file. (In floppy disk days, it was each chapter.) USFM is mostly used by the Paratext editor for Bible translations in progress.
The XML data file and scripts uploaded today are the simple beginnings of a framework to allow access to folders containing USFM texts. USFMMarkers.py loads and converts the XML file containing USFM codes, and provides some simple look-up functions. USFMFilenames.py accepts a folder name and searches for USFM files in that folder. All very simple, but hopefully another small step forwards.
One Comment
This looks interesting. Who wants to work on a common project to try and exploit this service? I have at least a couple of ideas to get started, both would use the public domain World English Bible text.
1. An app to consolidate text into a set for a chosen reading plan (e.g. the 14 narrative books, New Testament + Psalms and Proverbs, etc.
2. An app to generate text into epub (electronic reader) format.
I’ll check back here from time to time to see if anyone’s interested. Thank you
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