The Gedcom parser library (release @VERSION@)
-------------------------
The Gedcom parser library is a C library that provides an API to applications
to parse and process arbitrary genealogy files in the standard gedcom format.

Its main features are:

 - strict callback-based parser written in C (using lex/yacc)

 - supports the Gedcom 5.5 standard fully

 - supports the standard encoding formats (ASCII, ANSEL, UNICODE), but
   extensible (via a configuration file) to other encoding formats; by
   default ANSI is also supported.

 - all strings passed from callbacks to the using program are in UTF-8 format

 - internationalization of the error and warning messages

 - specific parsing of date values to a calendar-neutral date system (Julian
   days aka serial day numbers); the date parser can be called separately

 - specific parsing and checking of cross-references

 - "compatibility-mode" parsing, to allow for not-exactly-standard syntaxes
   used by other genealogy programs; currently, compatibility is added for:
     - ftree
     - Lifelines 3.0.2 (not complete)

NOTE:
 - NO BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY is guaranteed for 0.x releases !

To do list:
 - specific parsing of other special values
 - compatibility with other genealogy programs
 - older/newer Gedcom standards ?
 - ...

For more information, refer to the documentation in the doc subdirectory,
or to the SourceForge project web site and summary page:
  http://gedcom-parse.sourceforge.net
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/gedcom-parse

Also, have a look at the 'Genes' program, from which this library is a
spin-off, and which uses this library:
  http://genes.sourceforge.net
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/genes


Requirements:
------------
 - glibc 2.2 or higher

To build from sources, you'll also need:
 - gcc
 - autoconf
 - automake
 - flex
 - bison (won't work with plain yacc)

It is possible that it also runs on other platforms than Linux (and that the
glibc version requirement can be loosened), however, I can only support Linux
because that is the only platform I have...


Installation:
------------
This is simply:

  ./configure
  make
  make install

You can also run some tests via:
  make check


###############################################################################
# $Id$
# $Name$