Provided by: gramps_5.1.2-1_all 
NAME
English -
gramps(1) 5.1.2 gramps(1)
NAME gramps - Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming Sys‐ tem.
SYNOPSIS
gramps [-? | --help] [--usage] [--version] [-l] [-L] [-u | --force-unlock] [-O | --open= DATABASE
[-f | --format= FORMAT] [-i | --import= FILE [-f | --format= FORMAT]] [--remove=
FAMILY_TREE_PATTERN] [-e | --export= FILE [-f | --format= FORMAT]] [-a | --action= ACTION] [-p |
--options= OPTION‐ STRING]] [FILE] [--version]
DESCRIPTION
Gramps is a Free/OpenSource genealogy program. It is written in Python, using the GTK+/GNOME
interface. Gramps should seem familiar to anyone who has used other genealogy programs before
such as Family Tree Maker (TM), Personal Ancestral Files (TM), or the GNU Geneweb. It supports
importing of the ever popular GEDCOM format which is used world wide by almost all other genealogy
software.
OPTIONS
gramps FILE
When FILE is given (without any flags) as a family tree name or as a family tree database
directory, then it is opened and an interactive session is started. If FILE is a file
format under‐ stood by Gramps, an empty family tree is created whose name is based on
the FILE name and the data is imported into it. The rest of the options is ignored. This
way of launching is suit‐ able for using gramps as a handler for genealogical data in e.g.
web browsers. This invocation can accept any data format native to gramps, see below.
-f , --format= FORMAT
Explicitly specify format of FILE given by preceding -i , or -e option. If the -f option is
not given for any FILE , the format of that file is guessed according to its extension or
MIME-type.
Formats available for export are gramps-xml (guessed if FILE ends with .gramps ), gedcom
(guessed if FILE ends with .ged ), or any file export available through the Gramps plugin
system.
Formats available for import are gramps-xml , gedcom , gramps-pkg (guessed if FILE ends
with .gpkg ), and geneweb (guessed if FILE ends with .gw ).
Formats available for export are gramps-xml , gedcom , gramps-pkg , wft (guessed if FILE
ends with .wft ), geneweb.
-l Print a list of known family trees.
-L Print a detailed list of known family trees.
-u , --force-unlock
Unlock a locked database.
-O , --open= DATABASE
Open DATABASE which must be an existing database directory or existing family tree name.
If no action, import or export options are given on the command line then an interactive
ses‐ sion is started using that database.
-i , --import= FILE
Import data from FILE . If you haven't specified a database, then an empty database is
created for you called Family Tree x (where x is an incrementing number).
When more than one input file is given, each has to be preceded by -i flag. The files are
imported in the specified order, i.e. -i FILE1 -i FILE2 and -i FILE2 -i FILE1 might
produce different gramps IDs in the resulting database.
-e , --export= FILE
Export data into FILE . For gramps-xml , gedcom , wft , gramps-pkg , and geneweb , the FILE
is the name of the resulting file.
When more than one output file is given, each has to be preceded by -e flag. The files are
written one by one, in the specified order.
-a , --action= ACTION
Perform ACTION on the imported data. This is done after all imports are successfully
completed. Currently available actions are summary (same as Reports->View->Summary),
check (same as Tools->Database Processing->Check and Repair), report (generates report),
and tool (runs a plugin tool). Both report and tool need the OPTIONSTRING supplied by
the -p flag).
The OPTIONSTRING should satisfy the following conditions: It must not contain any spaces.
If some arguments need to include spaces, the string should be enclosed with quotation
marks, i.e., follow the shell syntax. Option string is a list of pairs with name and
value (separated by the equality sign). The name and value pairs must be separated by
commas.
Most of the report or tools options are specific for each report or tool. However, there
are some common options.
name=name This mandatory option determines which report or tool will be run. If the
supplied name does not correspond to any available report or tool, an error message will
be printed followed by the list of available reports or tools (depending on the ACTION ).
show=all This will produce the list of names for all options available for a given report
or tool.
show=optionname This will print the description of the functionality supplied by
optionname, as well as what are the acceptable types and values for this option.
Use the above options to find out everything about a given report.
When more than one output action is given, each has to be preceded by -a flag. The actions are
performed one by one, in the specified order.
-d , --debug= LOGGER_NAME
Enables debug logs for development and testing. Look at the source code for details
--version
Prints the version number of gramps and then exits
Operation
If the first argument on the command line does not start with dash (i.e. no flag), gramps will
attempt to open the file with the name given by the first argument and start interactive session,
ignoring the rest of the command line arguments.
If the -O flag is given, then gramps will try opening the supplied database and then work with
that data, as instructed by the further command line parameters.
With or without the -O flag, there could be multiple imports, exports, and actions specified
further on the command line by using -i , -e , and -a flags.
The order of -i , -e , or -a options does not matter. The actual order always is: all imports (if
any) -> all actions (if any) -> all exports (if any). But opening must always be first!
If no -O or -i option is given, gramps will launch its main window and start the usual interactive
session with the empty database, since there is no data to process, anyway.
If no -e or -a options are given, gramps will launch its main window and start the usual
interactive session with the database resulted from all imports. This database resides in the
import_db.grdb under ~/.gramps/import directory.
The error encountered during import, export, or action, will be either dumped to stdout (if
these are exceptions handled by gramps) or to stderr (if these are not handled). Use usual shell
redirections of stdout and stderr to save messages and errors in files.
EXAMPLES
To open an existing family tree and import an xml file into it, one may type:
gramps -O 'My Family Tree' -i ~/db3.gramps
The above changes the opened family tree, to do the same, but import both in a temporary family
tree and start an interactive session, one may type:
gramps -i 'My Family Tree' -i ~/db3.gramps
To import four databases (whose formats can be determined from their names) and then check the
resulting database for errors, one may type:
gramps -i file1.ged -i file2.tgz -i ~/db3.gramps -i file4.wft -a check
To explicitly specify the formats in the above example, append file‐ names with appropriate -f
options:
gramps -i file1.ged -f gedcom -i file2.tgz -f gramps-pkg -i ~/db3.gramps -f gramps-xml -i
file4.wft -f wft -a check
To record the database resulting from all imports, supply -e flag (use -f if the filename does
not allow gramps to guess the format):
gramps -i file1.ged -i file2.tgz -e ~/new-package -f gramps-pkg
To import three databases and start interactive gramps session with the result:
gramps -i file1.ged -i file2.tgz -i ~/db3.gramps
To run the Verify tool from the commandline and output the result to stdout:
gramps -O 'My Family Tree' -a tool -p name= verify
Finally, to start normal interactive session type:
gramps
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The program checks whether these environment variables are set:
LANG - describe, which language to use: Ex.: for polish language this variable has to be set to
pl_PL.UTF-8.
GRAMPSHOME - if set, force Gramps to use the specified directory to keep program settings and
databases there. By default, this variable is not set and gramps assumes that the folder with all
databases and pro‐ file settings should be created within the user profile folder
(described by environment variable HOME for Linux or USERPROFILE for Windows 2000/XP).
CONCEPTS
Supports a python-based plugin system, allowing import and export writ‐ ers, report generators,
tools, and display filters to be added without modification of the main program.
In addition to generating direct printer output, report generators also target other systems, such
as LibreOffice.org , AbiWord , HTML, or LaTeX to allow the users to modify the format to suit
their needs.
KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
FILES
${PREFIX}/bin/gramps
${PREFIX}/lib/python3/dist-packages/gramps/
${PREFIX}/share/
${HOME}/.gramps
AUTHORS
Donald Allingham <don@gramps-project.org> http://gramps-project.org/
This man page was originally written by: Brandon L. Griffith <brandon@debian.org> for inclusion in
the Debian GNU/Linux system.
This man page is currently maintained by: Gramps project <xxx@gramps-project.org>
DOCUMENTATION
The user documentation is available through standard web browser in the form of Gramps Manual.
The developer documentation can be found on the
http://www.gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Portal:Developers portal.
gramps(1) 5.1.2 gramps(1)
ENGLISH()