cffconvert

Command line program to validate and convert CITATION.cff files.

Supported input versions of the Citation File Format

| Citation File Format schema version | Link to Zenodo release | |-------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1.3.0 | unreleased | | 1.2.0 | | | 1.1.0 | | | 1.0.3 | | | 1.0.2 | | | 1.0.1 | |

Supported output formats

1. APA-like plaintext
2. BibTeX
3. CodeMeta
4. EndNote
5. RIS
6. schema.org JSON
7. Zenodo JSON

cffconvert does not support converting items from references or preferred-citation keys at the moment.

Installing

To install in user space,

python3 -m pip install --user cffconvert

Ensure that the user space directory ~/.local/bin/ is on the PATH.

which cffconvert

should now return the location of the program.

See docs/alternative-install-options.md for alternative install options.

Docker

cffconvert is available from DockerHub: https://hub.docker.com/r/citationcff/cffconvert

Example usage:

docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app citationcff/cffconvert --validate
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app citationcff/cffconvert --version
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app citationcff/cffconvert --help
# etc

pre-commit hook

cffconvert is also available as a pre-commit hook. Add the following to your .pre-commit-config.yaml file to start validating your CITATION.cff automatically whenever you issue a git commit:

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/citation-file-format/cffconvert
    rev: 054bda51dbe278b3e86f27c890e3f3ac877d616c
    hooks:
      - id: validate-cff

Command line interface

See cffconvert's options:

cffconvert --help

Shows:

Usage: cffconvert [OPTIONS]

  Command line program to validate and convert CITATION.cff files.

Options:
  -i, --infile PATH               Path to the CITATION.cff input file. If this
                                  option is omitted, './CITATION.cff' is used.
  -o, --outfile PATH              Path to the output file.
  -f, --format [apalike|bibtex|cff|codemeta|endnote|ris|schema.org|zenodo]
                                  Output format.
  -u, --url TEXT                  URL to the CITATION.cff input file.
  -h, --help                      Show help and exit.
  --show-trace                    Show error trace.
  --validate                      Validate the CITATION.cff file and exit.
  --version                       Print version and exit.
  --verbose                       Control output verbosity.

  If this program is useful to you, consider giving it a star on GitHub:
  https://github.com/citation-file-format/cffconvert

Example usage

Validating a local CITATION.cff file

cffconvert --validate
cffconvert --validate -i CITATION.cff
cffconvert --validate -i ${PWD}/CITATION.cff
cffconvert --validate -i ../some-other-dir/CITATION.cff

Validating a remote CITATION.cff file

cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/commit/<sha>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/tree/<sha>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/tree/<tag>
cffconvert --validate --url https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/tree/<branch>

Converting metadata to other formats

If there is a valid CITATION.cff file in the current directory, you can convert to various other formats and print the result on standard out with:

cffconvert -f bibtex
cffconvert -f codemeta
cffconvert -f endnote
cffconvert -f ris
cffconvert -f schema.org
cffconvert -f zenodo
cffconvert -f apalike

Writing to a file

# with i/o redirection:
cffconvert -f bibtex > bibtex.bib
cffconvert -f zenodo > .zenodo.json
cffconvert -f endnote > ${PWD}/endnote.enw
# etc

# without i/o redirection
cffconvert -f bibtex -o bibtex.bib
cffconvert -f zenodo -o .zenodo.json
cffconvert -f endnote -o ${PWD}/endnote.enw
# etc