Fix requirements dependencies
Ignore venv dir
Upgrade dev requirements
PyBBDB may sound like a rude noise, but it is actually a Python interface to the Insidious Big Brother Database (BBDB), an address book used with GNU Emacs. You can find out more about BBDB on the Emacs Wiki. The PyBBDB source repo is hosted at Sourcehut. Releases can be found on PyPI.
Note: This module currently only handles BBDB file format 9 (the latest format, as of January 2021). Formats earlier than this should first be converted by GNU Emacs.
The usual incantation will install things:
pip install pybbdb
To create a new database is as simple as you might expect:
>>> from bbdb.database import BBDB
>>> db = BBDB()
The database starts with no records. To add a new one, use the
add_record()
method, specifying the first and last names, and any
other attributes you want to set:
>>> fred = db.add_record("Fred", "Flintstone")
>>> fred # doctest: +ELLIPSIS +REPORT_UDIFF
Record(firstname='Fred', lastname='Flintstone', affix=[], aka=[], ...
>>> barney = db.add_record("Barney", "Rubble")
>>> db
<BBDB: 2 records>
The first and last names are attributes:
>>> fred.firstname, fred.lastname
('Fred', 'Flintstone')
There's also a composite name
property:
>>> fred.name
'Fred Flintstone'
You can set other attributes on the returned record object:
Most BBDB attributes consist of lists of things:
>>> fred.add_company("Slate Rock & Gravel")
>>> fred.add_affix("Mr")
>>> fred.add_aka("Freddie")
>>> fred.add_net("fred@bedrock.org")
>>> fred.add_net("fred.flintstone@gravel.com")
>>> fred.net
['fred@bedrock.org', 'fred.flintstone@gravel.com']
>>> fred.affix
['Mr']
Telephone records consist of a location tag and a phone number. The phone number can be either a list of integers (USA-style) or a string (international style):
>>> fred.add_phone("Home", "555-1234")
>>> fred.add_phone("Work", [555, 6789])
>>> list(sorted(fred.phone.items()))
[('Home', '555-1234'), ('Work', [555, 6789])]
Records can have multiple addresses, each indexed by a location tag. Each address in turn has several attributes:
>>> home = fred.add_address("Home")
>>> home.set_location("Cave 2a", "345 Cavestone Road")
>>> home.city = "Bedrock"
>>> home.state = "Hanna Barbera"
>>> home.zipcode = "12345"
>>> home.country = "USA"
>>> home # doctest: +ELLIPSIS +REPORT_UDIFF
Address(location=['Cave 2a', '345 Cavestone Road'], city='Bedrock', ...
>>> home.location
['Cave 2a', '345 Cavestone Road']
>>> home.zipcode
'12345'
Finally, each entry can have an arbitrary dictionary of user-defined notes:
>>> fred.add_note("spouse", "Wilma")
>>> fred.add_note("kids", "Pebbles, Bam-Bam")
>>> fred.add_note("catchphrase", '"Yabba dabba doo!"')
>>> list(sorted(fred.notes.items()))
[('catchphrase', '"Yabba dabba doo!"'), ('kids', 'Pebbles, Bam-Bam'), ('spouse', 'Wilma')]
Note values can also have newlines:
>>> barney.add_note("pets", "brontosaurus\npterodactyl")
The write()
method will write the database to a stream (default
stdout
) in a format suitable for use by GNU Emacs. THe write_file()
method writes to a file instead. They both use the lisp()
method
internally, to return the raw lisp text:
>>> print(db.lisp()) # doctest: +ELLIPSIS +REPORT_UDIFF
;; -*-coding: utf-8-emacs;-*-
;;; file-version: 9
;;; user-fields: (catchphrase kids pets spouse)
["Barney" "Rubble" nil nil nil nil nil nil ((pets . "brontosaurus\npterodactyl")) ...
["Fred" "Flintstone" ("Mr") ("Freddie") ("Slate Rock & Gravel") (["Home" "555-1234"] ...
The convenience write_file()
method will put that in a file:
>>> db.write_file("examples/bbdb.el")
You can read a database from file using the fromfile()
static method:
>>> newdb = BBDB.fromfile("examples/bbdb.el")
>>> newdb
<BBDB: 2 records>
The read()
and read_file()
methods of a BBDB database can be used
import records from other databases.
You can convert a BBDB database to a JSON string for serialization, using
the json
method:
>>> print(db.json(indent=4)) # doctest: +ELLIPSIS +REPORT_UDIFF
{
"coding": "utf-8-emacs",
"fileversion": 9,
"records": [
{
"firstname": "Barney",
"lastname": "Rubble",
"affix": [],
"aka": [],
"company": [],
"phone": {},
"address": {},
"net": [],
"notes": {
"pets": "brontosaurus\\npterodactyl"
},
"uuid": ...
"creation": ...
"timestamp": ...
},
{
"firstname": "Fred",
"lastname": "Flintstone",
"affix": [
"Mr"
],
"aka": [
"Freddie"
],
"company": [
"Slate Rock & Gravel"
],
"phone": {
"Home": "555-1234",
"Work": [
555,
6789
]
},
"address": {
"Home": {
"location": [
"Cave 2a",
"345 Cavestone Road"
],
"city": "Bedrock",
"state": "Hanna Barbera",
"zipcode": "12345",
"country": "USA"
}
},
"net": [
"fred@bedrock.org",
"fred.flintstone@gravel.com"
],
"notes": {
"spouse": "Wilma",
"kids": "Pebbles, Bam-Bam",
"catchphrase": "\"Yabba dabba doo!\""
},
"uuid": ...
"creation": ...
"timestamp": ...
}
]
}
The dict()
method dumps the database as a Python dict. You can also
create a BBDB database from an appropriately-structured dict using the
fromdict()
method:
>>> data = db.dict()
>>> newdb = BBDB.fromdict(data)
>>> newdb == db
True
bbdb.lark
, so that things actually work outside a
development environment.You can add bug reports, feature requests, etc., to the issue tracker. Patches will also be welcome!