marc is a ruby library for reading and writing MAchine Readable Cataloging (MARC). More information about MARC can be found at http://www.loc.gov/marc.
Usage
require 'marc'
# reading records from a batch file
reader = MARC::Reader.new('marc.dat', :external_encoding => "MARC-8")
for record in reader
# print out field 245 subfield a
puts record['245']['a']
end
# creating a record
record = MARC::Record.new()
record.append(MARC::DataField.new('100', '0', ' ', ['a', 'John Doe']))
# writing a record
writer = MARC::Writer.new('marc.dat')
writer.write(record)
writer.close()
# writing a record as XML
writer = MARC::XMLWriter.new('marc.xml')
writer.write(record)
writer.close()
# encoding a record
MARC::Writer.encode(record) # or record.to_marc
MARC::Record provides #to_hash and #from_hash implementations that deal in ruby
hash's that are compatible with the
marc-in-json
serialization format. You are responsible for serializing the hash to/from JSON yourself.
Installation
gem install marc
Or if you're using bundler, add to your Gemfile
gem 'marc'
Character Encodings in 'binary' ISO-2709 MARC
The Marc binary (ISO 2709) Reader (MARC::Reader) has some features for helping you deal with character encodings in ruby 1.9. It is always recommended to supply an explicit :external_encoding option to MARC::Reader; either any valid ruby encoding, or the string "MARC-8". MARC-8 input will by default be transcoded to a UTF-8 internal representation.
MARC::Reader does not currently have any facilities for guessing encoding from MARC21 leader byte 9, that is ignored.
Consult the MARC::Reader class docs for a more complete discussion and range of options.
The MARC binary Writer (MARC::Writer) does not have any encoding-related features -- it's up to you the developer to make sure you create MARC::Records with consistent and expected char encodings, although MARC::Writer will write out a legal ISO 2709 either way, it just might have corrupted encodings.
Miscellany
Source code at: https://github.com/ruby-marc/ruby-marc/
Find generated API docs at: http://rubydoc.info/gems/marc/frames
Run automated tests in source with rake test.
Developers, release new version of gem to rubygems with rake release
(bundler-supplied task). Note that one nice thing this will do is automatically
tag the version in git, very important for later figuring out what's going on.
Authors
Kevin Clarke [email protected] Bill Dueber [email protected] William Groppe [email protected] Ross Singer [email protected] Ed Summers [email protected]