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<H1>
  PyPsion: Psion data handling in Python
</H1>
<ADDRESS>
  <A href="http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/">Dan Connolly</A><BR>
  $Id: README.html,v 1.4 1996/09/30 15:32:10 connolly Exp $
</ADDRESS>
<P>
Part of the reason that I bought a <A href="#psion">psion</A> was that I
saw lots of hacker activity on usenet, so I was confident that I could get
my data out of the dang thing and into something else (like emacs) if I wanted
to -- and not just the vendor-supported options.
<P>
There are quite a few utilities to run on the psion, but I'm surprised at
the lack of perl/python/tcl/scheme code to run on the host computer to do
stuff with psion files, like convert them to HTML or email or something useful.
<P>
Today, I just <EM>had</EM> to get the data out of my spreadsheet file: I
had a backup of the file on my unix box, but no serial cable. So converting
it to text on the psion wouldn't help. So I grabbed the (excellent!)
<A href="#psionics">psionics files</A> and started hacking. A couple hours
later, I had spr2qif done.
<P>
Share and Enjoy! <A href="pypsion-960922.tar.gz">source distribution</A>
(need to add wrd2html to this distribution)
<H2>
  Modules
</H2>
<DL>
  <DT>
    <A href="psionData.py">psionData</A>
  <DD>
    psionData.T is the base class. psionData.DBF handles generic database files.
    A few utilities for reading/writing structured data.
  <DT>
    <A href="psionSpr.py">psionSpr</A>
  <DD>
    psionSpr.Sheet is a subclass of psionData.T that handles spreadsheet data.
    Lots of missing pieces (esp formulas) but can usefully extract data
  <DT>
    <A href="psionAgenda.py">psionAgenda</A>
  <DD>
    beginning of code to read agenda files. Reads day, to-do entries, but doesn't
    do anything useful with them.
  <DT>
    <A HREF="wrd2html.py">wrd2html</A>
  <DD>
    beginning of code to convert .wrd files to HTML. Pretty much limited to H1,
    H2, P, and UL/LI.L. Not in the distribution yet.
</DL>
<H2>
  Examples
</H2>
<H3>
  Converting Word file to HTML
</H3>
<PRE>% python wrd2html.py &lt;slides.wrd &gt;All.html
</PRE>
<H3>
  Converting Spreadsheet to Quicken QIF format
</H3>
<PRE>
% python spr2qif.py <sheet.spr >sheet.qif
</PRE>
<H3>
  Exercizing the test harnesses
</H3>
<PRE>
% python psionData.py </psion/m/dat/data.dbf % python psionSpr.py < /psion/m/spr/sheet.spr % python psionAgenda.py < /psion/m/agn/agenda.spr </pre>

<H2>References
</H2>

<DL><P>
<DT><A name="python" href="http://www.python.org">Python</A>
<DD>a nifty object oriented scripting language by Guido VanRossum
<DT><A name="psionics" href="http://www.cityscape.co.uk/~cdwf/psion/psionics/">The Psionics Files</A>
<DD>The crucial documentation that made this possible
<DT><A href="http://www.psion.com">PSION</A>
<DD>makers if the nifty Psion 3a gizmo
</DL>
</PRE>
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