Question

I need to convert .ass subtitles file into .xml file. So far I did it by hand, but I have to do more and more of it.

That’s how process looks like:

Input .ass file:

Dialogue: 0,0:00:08.03,0:00:10.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Actor says something
Dialogue: 0,0:00:11.28,0:00:21.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Actor says something
etc.

Output .xml file:

<p begin="00:00:08.03" end="00:00:10.57">Actor says something</p>
<p begin="00:00:11.28" end="00:00:21.05">Actor says something</p>
etc.

I dodn’t know how to solve this task.

Answer 1

First, you should extract the relevant information from your source file. As the data is ,-seperated, you can use the python csv module or do a simple split(',').

This is an example method of how it could look like:

def extract(source):
    for line in iter(source):
        _, start, end, _, _, _, _, _, _, text = line.strip().split(',', 9)
        yield start, end, text

The next step if to convert your extracted data to the desired xml format. A function that plays well with the data from the first method could look like this (using simple string formatting):

xml = '<p begin="{start}" end="{end}">{text}</p>'
def to_xml(start, end, text):
    return xml.format(start=start, end=end, text=text)

Finally, opening the files and use the methods to write your output:

with open('input.ass') as infile, open('output.xml', 'w') as outfile:
    for start, end, text in extract(infile):
        outfile.write(to_xml(start, end, text) + '\n')

While you could of course make this smaller (less LOC), it is a readable approach IMHO.