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