On 2/19/2013 3:14 AM, Steve Hayes wrote: > In an earlier message I suggested using AWK to manipulate a GEDCOM file to > solve a particular problem. > > That point tended to get lost in discussion of other points like using other > ways to solve the problem, or discussion of flaws in the GEDCOM data model > itself and proposals for its replacement, which I see as a separate question. > > What I would like to see is the development of a kind of library of AWK > routines to manipulate GEDCOM files. Lots of genealogists have GEDCOM files, > and some would like to make changes to them, or extract information from them > in ways that might not be possible with other genealogy programs. > > Here is a GEDCOM file. > > I tried to choose a short one to use as an example, which shows the structure > of the file. OK, so that's presumably a good, representative input file for an awk script to run against. Now - what might an output file look like and (briefly!) why? Ed.