richard lyons wrote: > I'm asking for a bit of advice here. > > I wish to convert a kaddressbook database to abook format saving as > many fields as possible. > > I could do this by exporting to cvs, importing to gnumeric (or any > spreadsheet), shuffling the columns around, re-exporting to cvs and > importing back to abook. I'll lose a lot more than I want to, as the > abook cvs is only a partial dump. > > I could do it in BASIC - I still vaguely remember my first language! > > I could probably do it in perl - but I've never really learned perl, > and would have to work from the manual. > > But it seems to me most rational to use the opportunity to begin > learning one of the lighter languages that I keep seeing mention of. > So the question is, which do you people recommend? > > The input data will be the cvs dump from kmail, and the output will be > abook native format, which is a series of numbered paragraphs , > reminiscent of an doze .ini file. That is to say, it begins: > [2] > name=name > > [EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED] > address=address_1 address2=address_2 city=hereville ... > so I assume sed is less than optimal. It seems like a function I > might need again, so it is worth having it in a script. > > I really do need to equip myself with a convenient scripting language > for all these day-to-day admin tasks, and I'd like it if it can do a > little maths for me at time too. Please advise me which manual to > open. > > TIA > > -- > richard
A lot of languages are suited for this. A really easy language to learn is Python. There is also php, java and so on. But if i where you i would first have a look at Python. Regards, Benedict -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]