gramps(1) 3.4.9 gramps(1)NAMEgramps - Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming Sys‐
tem.
SYNOPSISgramps [-?|--help] [--usage] [--version] [-l] [-u|--force-unlock]
[-O|--open= DATABASE [-f|--format= FORMAT]] [-i|--import= FILE
[-f|--format= FORMAT]] [-i|--import= ...] [-e|--export= FILE
[-f|--format= FORMAT]] [-a|--action= ACTION] [-p|--options= OPTION‐
STRING]] [ FILE ] [--version]
DESCRIPTION
Gramps is a Free/OpenSource genealogy program. It is written in Python,
using the GTK+/GNOME interface. Gramps should seem familiar to anyone
who has used other genealogy programs before such as Family Tree Maker
(TM), Personal Ancestral Files (TM), or the GNU Geneweb. It supports
importing of the ever popular GEDCOM format which is used world wide by
almost all other genealogy software.
OPTIONSgramps FILE
When FILE is given (without any flags) as a family tree name or
as a family tree database directory, then it is opened and an
interactive session is started. If FILE is a file format under‐
stood by Gramps, an empty family tree is created whose name is
based on the FILE name and the data is imported into it. The
rest of the options is ignored. This way of launching is suit‐
able for using gramps as a handler for genealogical data in e.g.
web browsers. This invocation can accept any data format native
to gramps, see below.
-f,--format= FORMAT
Explicitly specify format of FILE given by preceding -i, or -e
option. If the -f option is not given for any FILE, the format
of that file is guessed according to its extension or MIME-type.
Formats available for export are gramps-xml (guessed if FILE
ends with .gramps), gedcom (guessed if FILE ends with .ged), or
any file export available through the Gramps plugin system.
Formats available for import are grdb, gramps-xml, gedcom,
gramps-pkg (guessed if FILE ends with .gpkg), and geneweb
(guessed if FILE ends with .gw).
Formats available for export are gramps-xml, gedcom, gramps-pkg,
wft (guessed if FILE ends with .wft), geneweb, and iso (never
guessed, always specify with -f option).
-l Print a list of known family trees.
-u,--force-unlock
Unlock a locked database.
-O,--open= DATABASE
Open DATABASE which must be an existing database directory or
existing family tree name. If no action, import or export
options are given on the command line then an interactive ses‐
sion is started using that database.
-i,--import= FILE
Import data from FILE. If you haven't specified a database then
a temporary database is used; this is deleted when you exit
gramps.
When more than one input file is given, each has to be preceded
by -i flag. The files are imported in the specified order, i.e.
-i FILE1 -i FILE2 and -i FILE2 -i FILE1 might produce different
gramps IDs in the resulting database.
-e,--export= FILE
Export data into FILE. For gramps-xml, gedcom, wft, gramps-pkg,
and geneweb, the FILE is the name of the resulting file.
When more than one output file is given, each has to be preceded
by -e flag. The files are written one by one, in the specified
order.
-a,--action= ACTION
Perform ACTION on the imported data. This is done after all
imports are successfully completed. Currently available actions
are summary (same as Reports->View->Summary), check (same as
Tools->Database Processing->Check and Repair), report (generates
report), and tool (runs a plugin tool). Both report and tool
need the OPTIONSTRING supplied by the -p flag).
The OPTIONSTRING should satisfy the following conditions:
It must not contain any spaces. If some arguments need to
include spaces, the string should be enclosed with quotation
marks, i.e., follow the shell syntax. Option string is a list
of pairs with name and value (separated by the equality sign).
The name and value pairs must be separated by commas.
Most of the report or tools options are specific for each report
or tool. However, there are some common options.
name=name
This mandatory option determines which report or tool will be
run. If the supplied name does not correspond to any available
report or tool, an error message will be printed followed by the
list of available reports or tools (depending on the ACTION).
show=all
This will produce the list of names for all options available
for a given report or tool.
show=optionname
This will print the description of the functionality supplied by
optionname, as well as what are the acceptable types and values
for this option.
Use the above options to find out everything about a given
report.
When more than one output action is given, each has to be preceded by
-a flag. The actions are performed one by one, in the specified order.
-d,--debug= LOGGER_NAME
Enables debug logs for development and testing. Look at the
source code for details
--version
Prints the version number of gramps and then exits
Operation
If the first argument on the command line does not start with dash
(i.e. no flag), gramps will attempt to open the file with the name
given by the first argument and start interactive session, ignoring the
rest of the command line arguments.
If the -O flag is given, then gramps will try opening the supplied
database and then work with that data, as instructed by the further
command line parameters.
With or without the -O flag, there could be multiple imports, exports,
and actions specified further on the command line by using -i, -e, and
-a flags.
The order of -i, -e, or -a options does not matter. The actual order
always is: all imports (if any) -> all actions (if any) -> all exports
(if any). But opening must always be first!
If no -O or -i option is given, gramps will launch its main window and
start the usual interactive session with the empty database, since
there is no data to process, anyway.
If no -e or -a options are given, gramps will launch its main window
and start the usual interactive session with the database resulted from
all imports. This database resides in the import_db.grdb under
~/.gramps/import directory.
The error encountered during import, export, or action, will be either
dumped to stdout (if these are exceptions handled by gramps) or to
stderr (if these are not handled). Use usual shell redirections of std‐
out and stderr to save messages and errors in files.
EXAMPLES
To open an existing family tree and import an xml file into it, one
may type:
gramps-O 'My Family Tree' -i ~/db3.gramps
The above changes the opened family tree, to do the same, but import
both in a temporary family tree and start an interactive session, one
may type:
gramps-i 'My Family Tree' -i ~/db3.gramps
To import four databases (whose formats can be determined from their
names) and then check the resulting database for errors, one may type:
gramps-i file1.ged -i file2.tgz -i ~/db3.gramps -i file4.wft -a
check
To explicitly specify the formats in the above example, append file‐
names with appropriate -f options:
gramps-i file1.ged -f gedcom -i file2.tgz -f gramps-pkg -i
~/db3.gramps -f gramps-xml -i file4.wft -f wft -a check
To record the database resulting from all imports, supply -e flag (use
-f if the filename does not allow gramps to guess the format):
gramps-i file1.ged -i file2.tgz -e ~/new-package -f gramps-pkg
To import three databases and start interactive gramps session with the
result:
gramps-i file1.ged -i file2.tgz -i ~/db3.gramps
To run the Verify tool from the commandline and output the result to
stdout:
gramps-O 'My Family Tree' -a tool -p name=verify
Finally, to start normal interactive session type:
grampsENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The program checks whether these environment variables are set:
LANG - describe, which language to use: Ex.: for polish language this
variable has to be set to pl_PL.UTF-8.
GRAMPSHOME - if set, force Gramps to use the specified directory to
keep program settings and databases there. By default, this variable is
not set and gramps assumes that the folder with all databases and pro‐
file settings should be created within the user profile folder
(described by environment variable HOME for Linux or USERPROFILE for
Windows 2000/XP).
CONCEPTS
Supports a python-based plugin system, allowing import and export writ‐
ers, report generators, tools, and display filters to be added without
modification of the main program.
In addition to generating direct printer output, report generators also
target other systems, such as OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, HTML, or LaTeX
to allow the users to modify the format to suit their needs.
KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONSFILES
${PREFIX}/bin/gramps
${PREFIX}/share/gramps
${HOME}/.gramps
AUTHORS
Donald Allingham <don@gramps-project.org>
http://gramps.sourceforge.net
This man page was originally written by:
Brandon L. Griffith <brandon@debian.org>
for inclusion in the Debian GNU/Linux system.
This man page is currently maintained by:
Gramps project <xxx@gramps-project.org>
DOCUMENTATION
The user documentation is available through standard GNOME Help browser
in the form of Gramps Manual. The manual is also available in XML for‐
mat as gramps-manual.xml under doc/gramps-manual/$LANG in the official
source distribution.
The developer documentation can be found on the http://develop‐
ers.gramps-project.org site.
December 2012 3.4.9 gramps(1)
