isbntools: A Python repository from abhimanyudhawan

Info

isbntools provides several useful methods and functions to validate, clean, transform, hyphenate and get metadata for ISBN strings.

For the end user several scripts are provided to use from the command line:

$ to_isbn10 ISBN13

transforms an ISBN13 number to ISBN10.

$ to_isbn13 ISBN10

transforms an ISBN10 number to ISBN13.

$ isbn_info ISBN

gives you the group identifier of the ISBN.

$ isbn_mask ISBN

masks (hyphenate) an ISBN (split it by identifiers).

$ isbn_meta ISBN [wcat|goob|openl|merge] [bibtex|...] [YOUR_APIKEY_TO_SERVICE]

gives you the main metadata associated with the ISBN, wcat uses worldcat.org (no key is needed), goob uses the Google Books service (no key is needed), openl uses the OpenLibrary.org api (no key is needed), merge uses a merged record of wcat and goob records (no key is needed) and is the default option (you only have to enter, e.g. isbn_meta 9780321534965). You can enter API keys and set preferences in the file isbntools.conf in your $HOME\.isbntools directory (UNIX). For Windows, you should look at %APPDATA%/isbntools/isbntools.conf. The output can be formatted as bibtex, csl (CSL-JSON), msword, endnote, refworks, opf, or json (BibJSON) bibliographic formats.

NOTE You can apply this command to many ISBNs by using posix pipes (e.g. type FILE_WITH_ISBNs.txt | isbn_meta [SERVICE] [FORMAT] [APIKEY] in Windows)

You can add more sources for metadata by installing isbnlib plugins: isbnlib-bnf, isbnlib-porbase, isbnlib-loc, ... (check pypi for available plugins).

$ isbn_editions ISBN

gives the collection of ISBNs that represent a given book (uses Open Library and LibraryThing).

$ isbn_validate ISBN

validates ISBN10 and ISBN13.

$ ... | isbn_validate

to use with pipes (e.g. cat FILE_WITH_ISBNs | isbn_validate in OSX or Linux).

$ isbn_from_words "words from title and author name"

a fuzzy script that returns the most probable ISBN from a set of words. (You can verify the result with isbn_meta)!

$ isbn_goom "words from title and author name" [bibtex|cls|opf|msword|endnote|refworks|json]

a script that returns from Google Books multiple references.

$ isbn_doi ISBN

returns the doi's ISBN-A code of a given ISBN.

$ isbn_ean13 ISBN

returns the EAN13 code of a given ISBN.

$ isbn_ren FILENAME

renames (using metadata) files in the current directory that have ISBNs in their filename (e.g. isbn_ren 1783559284_book.epub, isbn_ren "*.pdf").

Enter isbn_ren to see many other options.

$ isbntools

writes version and copyright notice and checks if there are updates.

With

$ isbn_repl

you will get a REPL with history, autocompletion, fuzzy options, redirection and access to the shell.

Following is a typical session:

$ isbn_repl

    Welcome to the isbntools 4.3.15 REPL.
    ** For help type 'help' or '?'
    ** To exit type 'exit' :)
    ** To run a shell command, type '!<shellcmnd>'
    ** Use '#' in place of the last ISBN

$ isbn> ?

Commands available (type ?<command> to get help):
-------------------------------------------------
BIBFORMATS  conf   doi      editions    goom  mask       to_isbn13
PROVIDERS   cover  doi2tex  exit        help  meta       validate 
audit       desc   ean13    from_words  info  to_isbn10


$ isbn> meta 9780156001311 tex
@book{9780156001311,
     title = {The Name Of The Rose},
    author = {Umberto Eco},
      isbn = {9780156001311},
      year = {1994},
 publisher = {Harcourt Brace}
}
$ isbn> meta 9780156001311 tex >>myreferences.bib
$ isbn> !ls
myreferences.bib
$ isbn> desc #
It is the year 1327. Franciscans in an Italian abbey are suspected of
heresy, but Brother William of Baskerville's investigation is suddenly
overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen
and Kurt Wolff Book
$ isbn> cover #
     thumbnail:  http://books.google.com/books/content?id=PVVyuD1UY1wC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1
smallThumbnail:  http://books.google.com/books/content?id=PVVyuD1UY1wC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=5
$ isbn> PROVIDERS
bnf  goob  loc  merge  openl  porbase  wcat
$ isbn> exit
bye

Within REPL many of the operations are faster.

Many more scripts could be written with the isbntools and isbnlib library, using the methods for extraction, cleaning, validation and standardization of ISBNs.

Just for fun, suppose I want the most spoken about book with certain words in his title. For a quick-and-dirty solution, enter the following code in a file and save it as isbn_tmsa_book.py.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
from isbntools.app import *

query = sys.argv[1].replace(' ', '+')
isbn = isbn_from_words(query)

print("The ISBN of the most `spoken-about` book with this title is %s" % isbn)
print("")
print("... and the book is:")
print("")
print(registry.bibformatters['labels'](meta(isbn)))

Then in a command line (in the same directory):

$ python isbn_tmsa_book.py 'noise'

In my case I get:

The ISBN of the most `spoken-about` book with this title is 9780143105985

... and the book is:

Type:      BOOK
Title:     White Noise
Author:    Don DeLillo
ISBN:      9780670803736
Year:      1985
Publisher: Viking

Have fun!

Install

From the command line enter (in some cases you have to precede the command with sudo):

$ pip install isbntools

this installs from pypi or:

$ easy_install isbntools

this installs from pypi too, or (to install locally in Linux or Mac OS X):

$ pip install isbntools-4.3.15.tar.gz

but first you have to download the file!

If you use linux systems, you can install using your distribution package manager (packages python-isbntools and python3-isbntools), however usually these packages are very old and don't work well anymore!

You should check if the install was successful, by enter:

$ isbntools

For Devs

If all you want is to add isbntools to the requirements of your project, probably you will better served with isbnlib, it implements the basic functionality of isbntools without end user scripts and configuration files!

If you think that that is not enough, please read at least this page of the documentation.

If you would like to contribute to the project please read the guidelines.

Conf File

You can enter API keys and set preferences in the file isbntools.conf in your $HOME/.isbntools directory (UNIX). For Windows, you should look at %APPDATA%/isbntools/isbntools.conf (create these, directory and file, if don't exist [Now, just enter isbn_conf make]). The file should look like:

...

[MISC]
REN_FORMAT={firstAuthorLastName}{year}_{title}_{isbn}
DEBUG=False

[SYS]
URLOPEN_TIMEOUT=10
THREADS_TIMEOUT=12

[SERVICES]
DEFAULT_SERVICE=merge
VIAS_MERGE=parallel

...

The values are self-explanatory!

NOTE If you are running isbntools inside a virtual environment, the isbntools.conf file will be inside folder isbntools at the root of the environment.

The easier way to manipulate these files is by using the script isbn_conf. At a terminal enter:

$ isbn_conf show

to see the current conf file.

This script has many options that allow a controlled editing of the conf file. Just enter isbn_conf for help.

Known Issues

The meta method and the isbn_meta script sometimes give a wrong result (this is due to errors on the chosen service), in alternative you could try one of the others services.
The isbntools works internally with unicode, however this doesn't solve errors of lost information due to bad encode/decode at the origin!
Periodically, agencies, issue new blocks of ISBNs. The range of these blocks is on a database that mask uses. So it could happen, if you have a version of isbntools that is too old, mask doesn't work for valid (recent) issued ISBNs. The solution? Update isbntools often!
Calls to metadata services are cached by default. If you don't want this feature, just enter isbn_conf setopt cache no. If by any reason you need to clear the cache, just enter isbn_conf delcache.

Any issue that you would like to report, please do it at github or at stackoverflow with tag isbntools.

More documentation at isbntools.readthedocs.org

abhimanyudhawan/isbntools

Info

Install

For Devs

Conf File

Known Issues