Gramps SQL Database
This page documents the format of a SQL database version of the GRAMPS BSDDB datastore. This can be seen as a step towards a SQL backend for GRAMPS, and for supplying data to other applications, such as a GRAMPS Webapp.
GRAMPS SQL database Overview
The current version of this project outputs the GRAMPS BSDDB data into a relational SQLite database. You can access this functionality through the ExportSql and ImportSql programs of the Third-party Plugins.
Sample usage
After dropping the above plugins into your .gramps/plugins subdirectory, you can:
python src/gramps.py -O "My Family Tree" -e familytree.sql
This will export the entire contents of your database (not including bookmarks, gramplets, nor any meta data, etc.) into a sqlite3 database named "familytree.sql'. Likewise, you can read the data it a new database:
python src/gramps.py -i familytree.sql
NOTE: if you import this file into an existing family tree, you will get corrupted data for any items that overlap with internal numbering! This has the same effect as importing with GRAMPS XML.
Exporting a SQL database can take up to 2 seconds per record to output. Importing a SQL database can take up to 1 second a record to read in.
External Access
After exporting, you can then access your data using any program that can read sqlite files. For example, on Linux:
$ sqlite3 export.sql SQLite version 3.6.12 Enter ".help" for instructions Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";" sqlite> .tables address event location note repository_ref attribute event_ref markup person source child_ref family media person_ref source_ref datamap lds media_ref place url date link name repository sqlite> .headers on sqlite> select * from person; handle |gid |gender|death_ref_handle |birth_ref_handle |change |marker0|marker1 |private b5dc6d9aa5766513709|I0010 |0 |b5dc6d9aa07279205ad|b5dc6d9aa3e7b41b0f1|1249739601 |1 |Complete|1 b5dc6d9add708e5ba9e|Amle achba |0 |b5dc6d9adc539e3085e| |1249739601 |2 |ToDo |0 b5dc6d9cd9c134a0c39|I0017 |1 | | |1249739602 |-1 | |0 b5dc6d9dfd3719d4e00|imgoabim Miulka|1 |b5dc6d9dfca6a342e45| |1249739603 |1 |Complete|0 b5dc6d9f38779e2275b|I0024 |0 | |b5dc6d9f37b685b9607|1249739603 |-1 | |0 ...
If you change the data, you can then read it back in and GRAMPS will reflect the changes.
NOTE: You should only attempt editing textual fields or fields for which you know the meaning. For example, in the above, do not change the handle fields, but you can change one's gender for 0 to 1.