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Commandline Usage

The bluebell command converts plaintext files into Akoma Ntoso XML (or an intermediate JSON tree) using the same parser the library exposes.

Basic Syntax

bluebell <frbr_uri> <root> <input-file> [--json] [--pretty]
  • <frbr_uri>: FRBR URI describing the work, e.g. /akn/za/act/2009/1. It is parsed with cobalt.FrbrUri and is required for proper metadata in the output document.
  • <root>: the document type to parse (act, bill, judgment, debateReport, doc, statement, etc.). Aliases such as debatereport are also recognised.
  • <input-file>: path to the plaintext source you want to parse.
  • --json: emit the intermediate parse tree as JSON instead of XML.
  • --pretty: pretty-print the XML output (ignored when --json is set).

Example

bluebell /akn/za/act/2009/1 act samples/act.txt --pretty > act.xml

The command reads samples/act.txt, parses it using the act grammar, and writes formatted Akoma Ntoso XML to STDOUT. Redirect output to capture the XML.

Error Behaviour

If parsing fails, the CLI prints the numbered source lines to STDERR before raising the error. Use this context to locate and fix structural issues (indentation, missing headings, invalid keywords). Once the input matches the grammar, rerun the command to produce XML.