ELAN_floyd-merge.py

This is a script to merge elan projects in sequence.

There are a number of conditions that must be met in order for the script to work properly. They are:

.eaf files that have the same tier structure
.wav files that have the same properties (stereo/mono, frame/bit rate, etc)
projects must be contained in a suitable directory structure (see below)

If these conditions aren't met, the script will generate unpredictable output or faile completely.

Pre Floyd-merge directory structure

	* to-merge
		* file_1
			* file_1.eaf
			* file_1.wav
		* file_2
			* file_2.eaf
			* file_2.wav
		* file_3
			* file_3.eaf
			* file_3.wav
		* file_4
			* file_4.eaf
			* file_4.wav

Caveats

There are some cases where I would expect the script to run into problems.

The test projects used the default tier type and symbolic association between tiers. Other tier constraints might / will probably cause problems. Feel free to adapt the code or send me an example .eaf using other constraints and I can figure out how to make it work.
Windows: I tested everything on a box running linux. In principle it should work the same way on a mac. Windows does funny stuff with path names and I have no idea how Elan manages paths in Windows. If you try this on windows and it works, pls let me know, otherwise, send me your .eaf.
Before you run this or any script on your elan projects, back them up, or make copies of the projects first.

Usage

Prepare to-be-merged projects according to the above pattern.
Run ELAN_floyd-merge.py with Python 3
Enter the full absolute path to the to_be_merged directory.
Enter a name for the result

A new directory will be generated inside the to-merge directory where the merged .wav and .eaf files will be deposited.

You will probably have to use the "open with another program" option to open the new .eaf file the first time (and until it is overwritten by Elan).

Modules

There are a few modules that need to be accessible.

contextlib
datetime
functools
os
AudioSegment from pydub
time
wave
xml.etree.ElementTree

If you don't know if you have these, just run the script -- you'll get an error if something is missing :D Google how to install those modules on your system.

Other modules are included with the repo as .py files.

optimize_tier_ids
optimize_xml_formatting
welcome

Make sure they live in the same directory as ELAN_floyd-merge.py, otherwise nothing will work.

But how do I "run" a `.py'

Open your Terminal app cd to the directory where ELAN_floyd-merge.py is saved and enter:

    python --version

If it answers "version 3.something", just enter

    python ELAN_floyd-merge.py

and follow the prompts.

If your python --version command returns "version 2.something", try

    python3 --version

If that gets you info that you have "version 3.something", just enter

    python3 ELAN_floyd-merge.py

and follow the prompts. Otherwise, google how to install Python 3 on your system and come back after you get it working.

Contents of this repo

The main scripts are in the root directory.

DEBUG contains the same scripts, but with a bunch of print statements, which may help you figure out a problem if somethign is going wrong.
to-merge contains a test data set. I'd suggest running on this set first to make sure everything works as it should

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

BobBorges/ELAN_floyd-merge