From: Justin Bailey Date: 2006-12-13T07:36:17+09:00 Subject: [ANN] - Bible 1.0.1 - A bible reference parsing and text retrieval tool ------=_Part_126364_28440390.1165962973040 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline All, I'm proud to announce the release of Bible 1.0.1, a library for parsing Bible references and retrieving the text from the web. == What is it? Mainly, an interactive application for retrieving and displaying books, chapters, and verses. Once installed, type "bible" to start an interactive session. A wide variety of references are supported: Gen 1 # first chapter of Genesis Genesis 1 # Full names supported 1 Kgs 1 - 2 # 1st and 2nd chapter in 1 Kings Luke 15:8-10 # Specific verses from chapters supported Luke 15:1-7, 11-32 # Multiple, disjoint verse specification Matt 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5: 31 # Multiple books together Gen 1, 3 # discontinuous chapters Gen 1 - 2:3 # Span chapters, to a specific verse Besides the abbreviations listed above, most common names for books can be used ( i.e. "1 Kings", "Matthew", etc.). Other common means of separating chapters and verses may also be used (e.g. "Lk 15.11-32", "Genesis 1; 3", etc.). My motivation for writing this library was to be able copy verse references off web pages and paste them into the console with little or no change, so the parser is pretty flexible. Three translations are supported out of the box: Revised Standard Version (the default), New American Bible, and Douay-Rheims. To access these, enter :rsv, :nab, or :dr at the console. The script can also be passed various arguments to look up a reference, print it, and exit. Run "bible --help" to see these options. == How do I get it? The easiest way to get it is via a gem download: gem install bible The project is hosted on rubyforge at: http://rubyforge.org/projects/bible/ == Other Notes If you run this on Windows, and have the win32console gem installed, output will be nicely paged. Book titles, chapters, and verses will also be bolded. Essentially, the text is a lot easier to read with the gem installed. Any one who wishes to get it working on *nix systems is welcome to contact me with a patch or even suggestions. == Limitations The library includes a definition of the books in the bible, the chapters in each book, and the number of verses in each chapter. This allows references to be parsed accurately but it makes supporting multiple Bible "schemas" difficult. It will accept all deutero-canonical books ( i.e. Catholic Bibles) but it the verse references for older translations, like the Douay-Rheims, might be off. I'd like it to support all versions eventually ( e.g. Vulgate, Septuagint, NIV, etc, etc) but that's not the case right now. == Anything else? The interactive application is the main point of this gem, but it does include a library that could conceivably be used in other applications. Also, all text is scraped off various web sites so do be nice - no need to download the entire Bible daily or anything. Bug reports, feedback, and suggestions are welcome. God Bless ;) Justin ------=_Part_126364_28440390.1165962973040--