Library for parsing epub document metadata (Haskell)
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| # epub-metadata
## Synopsis
Library for parsing epub document metadata (Haskell)
## Description
Library for parsing and manipulating epub document metadata. Supports epub versions 2 and 3.
This library was constructed by studying the IDPF specifications for epub documents found [here for version 2.x](http://www.idpf.org/epub/20/spec/OPF_2.0.1_draft.htm) and [here for version 3.x](http://www.idpf.org/epub/30/spec/epub30-publications.html)
### Why was this done?
The motivation for this project grew out of my desire to take charge
of missing or incorrect epub metadata in books I have purchased. I
started out using the Calibre open source tools for examining this
info. Limitations and incomplete implementation of those tools led
me here to build a more complete implementation in the programming
language that I love beyond all others.
### Why didn't I just use existing solutions?
#### Calibre ebook-meta utility
I experienced various problems using this software, such as:
* Incomplete and in some cases incorrect handling of tags that can
exist more than once (creator, contributor), particularly when they
are differentiated using attributes according to the spec.
* Unable to display many fields in the OPF Package Document metadata
specification. Unable to manipulate data that is represented as
attributes of tags in the OPF spec.
* Astonishingly slow performance. A command-line renaming tool built with
epub-metadata is more than 45 times faster at parsing and displaying
epub metadata. I'm going to blame Python here for Calibre's
performance. This has had a big impact on projects where I've been
processing hundreds of epubs in batch operations.
#### epub on Hackage, epub E-Book construction support library
* The focus of this project seems to be with building new documents,
not parsing existing files. And there is a specific attempt to do more
than the metadata, to gather up the content and other metafiles that
make up an epub for creation.
* Examining Codec.Ebook.OPF.Types, most of the metadata fields
from the OPF Package Document spec are missing or aren't modeled
thoroughly. I felt that to contribute to this project, I would have
had to significantly rip up the types and redesign them.
* At this time it seemed like a better solution for me to
start fresh with modelling the types and code to manipulate them. That
said, I would be very interested in combining the epub and epub-metadata
projects at some point in some way that makes sense.
### Using this library
Please see the [Haddock documentation](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/epub-metadata-4.0/docs/Codec-Epub.html) or source code for
[Codec.Epub](http://hub.darcs.net/dino/epub-metadata/browse/src/Codec/Epub.hs)
This file has a working example of using this library.
## Getting source
- Download the cabalized source package [from Hackage](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/epub-metadata)
- Get the source with darcs: `$ darcs get http://hub.darcs.net/dino/epub-metadata`
- Get the source with cabal-install: `$ cabal get epub-metadata`
- Get the source with stack: `$ stack unpack epub-metadata`
- If you're just looking, [browse the source](http://hub.darcs.net/dino/epub-metadata)
And once you have it, building the usual way:
$ stack build
$ stack test
$ stack haddock
## Contact
Dino Morelli <[dino@ui3.info](mailto:dino@ui3.info)>
|