Keyword Import Format

[Rochambeaux]

Are there characters that are not allowed or length limits to keywords when trying to import from a file?

I have a list of the Birds of the World in .TXT format.

I've tried cutting down the 10K+ entries and it will import but if I try to import the entire file I keep getting a "Corrupt Data" error.

Any ideas?

[Rochambeaux]

Apparently you can't edit your own posts..

I figured this out - commas are not allowed anywhere in the file you are importing to LR.

Dashes, paranthesis, etc are fine just no commas.

[johnrellis]

Right, commas aren't allowed in keywords in general. Bugs in older versions of LR sometimes allowed keywords containing commas to be created, but those have been fixed.

Beware that the Keyword List panel and the Metadata browser's Keywords column can only display about 1500 lines. So if you try to display, say, 10K keywords, LR will misbehave without warning. The solution is to use hierarchical keywords and keep most of the hierarchy collapsed.  (I assume your Birds Of The World file defines a detailed hierarchy.)

[Rochambeaux]

Thanks - The hierarchy problem is the challenge.  Any existing Bird lists in that format are pretty dated.  I've found some old infromation on "transforming" XML Bird Lists to LR format but they involve the use of programs that are even more dated and or not available.

https://github.com/rsjaffe/IOC-Bird-List-Lightroom-Keyword-Generator

https://saxon.sourceforge.net/

Manually converting these files to that hierarchy format is just too painful to undertake.

[johnrellis]

I was able to download and convert the list at worldbirdnames.org to a LR-compatible .txt file using the transformations you linked to:

https://github.com/rsjaffe/IOC-Bird-List-Lightroom-Keyword-Generator

(The author @rsjaffee is the developer of the LR plugin MIDI2LR, a very popular, sophisticated plugin for using MIDI controllers with LR.)

I floundered at first, not reading rsjafee carefully and thinking that Saxonica was going to cost £60.00, but then a little more careful searching revealed the free open-source version.

Detailed steps:

1. Downloaded the IOC-Bird-List-Lightroom-Keyword-Generator files into a folder.

2. Downloaded the XML version 13.2 of the IOC WOrld Bird List from here:

https://www.worldbirdnames.org/new/ioc-lists/master-list-2/

and placed "master_ioc-names_xml.xml" in the same folder as step 1.

3. Installed the open-source release of the Saxon 10.9 for Windows (SaxonHE10-9N-setup.exe), recommended by rsjaffee, from here:

https://github.com/Saxonica/Saxon-HE/releases

4. In the folder from step 1, edited the file "transform.bat" and changed the two references "SaxonHE9.9N" to "SaxonHE10.9N", to correspond with the version downloaded in step 3.

5. At a command prompt, did:

cd <path-to-folder-from-step-1>
.\transform.bat

which created "birdsfam.txt" and "birdsord.txt".  

6. In LR, did Metadata > Import Keywords and selected "birdsfam.txt", producing this keyword hierarchy:

[Rochambeaux]

Step 3 is the key!  Every reference pointed me to the newer Saxon deployments, which are Java, .Net, etc.  No matter what version I installed I culd never find "Transform.exe".

I'll give it a whirl tonight - many, many thanks!

[Rochambeaux]

No joy.  Getting a syntax error.

Put everything in the /BIN folder and edited the batch file.

What am I doing wrong?

[johnrellis]

Copy the lines from "transform.bat" here. 

[Rochambeaux]

Can't copy and paste to here - converted to PDF and attached.

In parallel I'm trying to create a manual file of the Clements list.  Any idea why the second file will appear to import but only show a fraction of the entries?

[johnrellis]

Looks like you somehow overwrote transform.bat with an XML file. It should contain:

"C:\Program Files\Saxonica\SaxonHE10.9N\bin\Transform.exe" -s:master_ioc-names_xml.xml -xsl:birdsbyfamily.xsl -o:birdsfam.txt
"C:\Program Files\Saxonica\SaxonHE10.9N\bin\Transform.exe" -s:master_ioc-names_xml.xml -xsl:birdsbyorder.xsl -o:birdsord.txt

[Rochambeaux]

Wierd - I downloaded it as is from the site.  Let me try that - thanks!

Ignore the second question/file - figured it out.

[Rochambeaux]

Better but still getting an error...

[johnrellis]

It looks like "birdsbyfamily.xsl" got overwritten too. Your screenshot shows it having a length of 135,499 bytes:

but it should be only 2024 bytes.

Maybe re-download the entire folder:

https://github.com/rsjaffe/IOC-Bird-List-Lightroom-Keyword-Generator

and keep that folder separate, rather than merging it with the Saxonica program folder. Don't forget to re-edit "transform.bat".

[johnrellis]

Here's my folder containing the rsjaffe folder, the modified "transform.bat", and downloaded "master_ioc-names_xml.xml", and the two generated LR keyword files, "birdsfam.txt" and "birdsord.txt":

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/32f031krayv57jl9mwwm1/birds.2023.08.31.zip?rlkey=upnvqf9ysc8ad5k62e65...