USFM Grammar

Description

USFM Grammar is a JavaScript library for parsing and converting USFM (Unified Standard Format Markers) to/from USJ (Unified Standard JSON) format. This library provides functionalities to parse USFM strings into a syntax tree and convert them into a JSON-like structure (USJ), and vice versa.

Installation

You can install USFM Grammar via npm:

npm install usfm-grammar

Usage

Importing, parsing USFM, checking errors

const {USFMParser, Filter} = require('usfm-grammar');

const USFM = '\\id GEN\n\\c 1\n\\p\n\\v 1 In the begining..\\v 2 some more text'
const usfmParser = new USFMParser(USFM);
console.log(usfmParser.errors)

USJ

Here's how you can use USFM Grammar in your JavaScript projects to work with the JSON format, USJ:

const {USFMParser} = require('usfm-grammar');

const USFM = '\\id GEN\n\\c 1\n\\p\n\\v 1 In the begining..\\v 2 some more text'
const usfmParser = new USFMParser(USFM);

const USJ = usfmParser.toUSJ() // USFM to USJ
console.log(JSON.stringify(USJ, null, 2));

const usfmParser2 = new USFMParser(usfmString=null, fromUsj=USJ) // USJ to USFM
const usfmGen = usfmParser2.usfm;
console.log(usfmGen);

Working with USJ, also gives options like filtering selected markers, to edit the original USFM content. To understand more about how exclude_markers, include_markers, combine_texts and Filter works refer the section on filtering on USJ

USX

To work with the XML format, USX:

const {USFMParser} = require('usfm-grammar');
const { DOMImplementation, XMLSerializer } = require('xmldom');

const USFM = '\\id GEN\n\\c 1\n\\p\n\\v 1 In the begining..\\v 2 some more text'
const usfmParser = new USFMParser(USFM);

const usxElem = usfmParser.toUSX() // USFM to USX
const usxSerializer = new XMLSerializer();
const usx = usxSerializer.serializeToString(usxElem);

console.log(usx);

const usfmParser2 = new USFMParser(usfmString=null, fromUsj=null, fromUsx=usxElem) // USX to USFM
const usfmGen = usfmParser2.usfm;
console.log(usfmGen);

BibleNLP format

The Bible NLP format consists of two txt files: the first, with verse texts, one per line and the second, with corresponding references. The API generates a JSON with two fields, text and vref, each containing an array of strings.

const fs = require('fs');

const output = usfmParser.toBibleNlpFormat() 
//const output = my_parser.toBibleNlpFormat(true) //ignore_errors

const textLines = output.text.join('\n');
fs.writeFileSync('bibleNLP.txt', textLines, { encoding: 'utf-8' });

const refLines = output.vref.join('\n');
fs.writeFileSync('vref.txt', refLines, { encoding: 'utf-8' });

Biblenlp format data can also be used to initialize the parser and generate other formats like USFM, USX, USJ, List etc from.

import {ORIGINAL_VREF} from 'usfm-grammar';

const bibleNlpObj = {'vref': ["GEN 1:1", "GEN 1:2"], 'text':["In the begining ...", "The earth was formless ..."]}

const myParser = new USFMParser(null, null, null, bibleNlpObj);
console.log(myParser.usfm);

// To use the default versification in BibleNLP
const bibleNlpObj2 = {'vref':ORIGINAL_VREF, 'text':["In the begining ...", "The earth was formless ...", ...]} //Full text of a book or the whole Bible as per BibleNLP format (23213, 31170 or 41899 lines)
const myParser2 = new USFMParser(null, null, null, bibleNlpObj2, "GEN");
console.log(myParser2.usfm);
console.log(myParser2.warnings)

:warning: USFM and its sister formats are designed to contain only one book per file. In contrast, the BibleNLP format can store an entire Bible with multiple books in a single file. When converting BibleNLP to USFM, if multiple books are present, the resulting USFM file will contain multiple books. This deviates from the expected structure of a valid USFM file, causing further conversions to other formats to fail. To ensure successful parsing, the generated USFM file must be split into separate files, each containing a single book.

Table/List format

const listOutput = usfmParser.toList();
/* const listOutput = usfmParser.toList(
                      Filter.NOTES,  //exclude
                      ["id", "c", "v"], //include
                      true,  //ignore errors
                      true  //combine texts
                      )*/
const tableOutput = listOutput.map(row => row.join('\t')).join('\n');
console.log(tableOutput);

Autofix and Validation

Experimental Validation and Autofix feature for USFM:

const {Validator} = require("usfm-grammar");

const wrongUSFM="\\id GEN\n\\c 1\n\\v 1 test verse"
const checker = new Validator();
const resp = checker.isValidUSFM(wrongUSFM); // true or false
console.log(checker.message) // List of errors if present

const editedUSFM = checker.autoFixUSFM(wrongUSFM);
console.log(checker.message); // Report on autofix attempt

Validation of USJ format:

const {Validator} = require("usfm-grammar");
const simpleUSJ = {
  type: 'USJ',
  version: '0.3.0',
  content: [
    { type: 'book', marker: 'id', code: 'GEN', content: [] },
    { type: 'chapter', marker: 'c', number: '1', sid: 'GEN 1' },
    { type: 'para', marker: 'p', content: [
        {type: 'verse', marker: 'v', number: 1 },
        "In the begining..",
        {type: 'verse', marker: 'v', number: 2 }
      ] }
  ]
}
const checker = new Validator();
console.log(checker.isValidUSJ(simpleUSJ));
console.log(checker.message);

From ESM Project

When using in an ESModule, if import {USFMParser} from 'usfm-grammar doesnt work for you, you could try:

import pkg from 'usfm-grammar';
const {USFMParser} = pkg;

...

Filtering on USJ

The filtering on USJ, the JSON output, is a feature incorporated to allow data extraction, markup cleaning etc. The arguments exclude_markers and include_markers in the methods USFMParser.toUSJ() makes this possible. Also the USFMParser.toList(), can accept these inputs and perform similar operations. There is CLI versions also for these arguments to replicate the filtering feature there.

excludeMarkers

The first input parameter to toUSJ() and toList of USFMParser class. Defaults to null. When proivded, all markers except those listed will be included in the output.
includeMarkers

The second input parameter to toUSJ() and toList of USFMParser class. Defaults to null. When proivded, only those markers listed will be included in the output. includeMarkers is applied before applying excludeMarkers.

combineTexts

Fourth input parameter to toUSJ() and toList of USFMParser class. Defaults to true. After filtering out makers like paragraphs and characters, we are left with texts from within them, if 'text-in-excluded-parent' is also not excluded. These text snippets may come as separate components in the contents list. When this option is True, the consequetive text snippets will be concatinated together. The text concatination is done in a puctuation and space aware manner. If users need more control over the space handling or for any other reason, would prefer the texts snippets as different components in the output, this can be set to False.

usfm_grammar.Filter

This Class provides a set of enums that would be useful in providing in the excludeMarkers and includeMarkers inputs rather than users listing out individual markers. The class has following options

  BOOK_HEADERS : identification and introduction markers
  TITLES : section headings and associated markers
  COMMENTS : comment markers like \rem
  PARAGRAPHS : paragraph markers like \p, poetry markers, list table markers
  CHARACTERS : all character level markups like \em, \w, \wj etc and their nested versions with +
  NOTES : foot note, cross-reference and their content markers
  STUDY_BIBLE : \esb and \cat
  BCV : \id, \c and \v
  TEXT : 'text-in-excluded-parent'

To inspect which are the markers in each of these options, it could be just printed out, print(Filter.TITLES). These could be used individually or concatinated to get the desired filtering of markers and data:

  output = usfmParser.toUSJ(null, include_markers=Filter.BCV)
  output = usfmParser.toUSJ(null, include_markers=[...Filter.BCV, ...Filter.TEXT])
  output = usfmParser.toUSJ(exclude_markers=[...Filter.PARAGRAPHS, ...Filter.CHARACTERS])

Inner contents of excluded markers

For markers like \p \q etc, by excluding them, we only remove them from the heirachy and retain the inner contents like \v, text etc that would be coming inside it. But for certain other markers like \f, \x, \esb etc, if they are excluded their inner contents are also excluded. Following is the set of all markers, who inner contents are discarded if they are mentioned in excludeMarkers or not included in includeMarkers.
```
BOOK_HEADERS, TITLES, COMMENTS, NOTES, STUDY_BIBLE
```
:warning: Generally, it is recommended to NOT use both exclude_markers and includeMarkers together as it could lead to unexpected behavours and data loss. For instance if include_makers has \fk and excludeMarkers has \f, the output will not contain \fk as all inner contents of \f will be discarded.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you find any issues or have suggestions for improvements, feel free to open an issue or create a pull request on GitHub.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Package detail

usfm-grammar

readme