Functions

Fix functions manipulate fields in every item of a Catmandu Importer. For instance, using the command below the title field will be upcased for every item in the input list of JSON items.

$ catmandu convert JSON --fix 'upcase(title)' < data.json

Fix functions can have zero or more arguments separated by commas:

vacuum()              # Clean all empty fields in a record
upcase(title)         # Upcase the title value
append(title,"-123")  # Add -123 at the end of the title value 

The arguments to a Fix function can be a Fix path or a literal string. Literal string can be quoted with double or single quotes.

append(title,"-123")
append(title,'foo bar')

In case of single quotes all the characters between quotes will be interpreted verbatim. When using double quotes, the values in quotes can be interpreted by some Fix functions.

replace_all(title,"My (.*) Pony","Our $1 Fish")   # Replace 'My Little Pony' by 'Our Little Fish'

Some Fix functions accept zero or more options which need to be specified as a name : value:

sort_field(tags, reverse:1)               # Sort the tags field in reverse order
lookup("title","dict.csv", sep_char:'|',default:'NONE')  # Lookup a title in a CSV file

Unless specified otherwise (such as in Binds), Fix function are executed in the order given by the Fix script:

upcase(authors.*)
append(authors.*,"abc")
replace_all(authors.*,"a","AB")

In the example above all transformations on the field authors will be executed in the order given. For example when the field authors contains this list:

---
authors:
  - John
  - Mary
  - Dave

The first fix will transform this list into:

---
authors:
  - JOHN
  - MARY
  - DAVE

The second fix will append "abc" to all authors

---
authors:
  - JOHNabc
  - MARYabc
  - DAVEabc

The third fix will replace all "a"-s by "AB"s

---
authors:
  - JOHNABbc
  - MARYABbc
  - DAVEABbc

In some cases the ordering of transformations of items in a list matters. For instance, you want to first do a sequence of transformation on all first items in a list, then a sequence of transformations on all second items in a list, etc. To change this ordering of Fix functions Binds need to be used.

For a nearly complete list of functions currently available in Catmandu, take a look at the Fixes Cheat Sheet.