ODT Text Mining in Python

The ODT format is slowly gaining popularity, as governments worldwide begin to either use FOSS software, or transition to formats that are open enough to still be usable in at least a hundred years.

The Format

Within all .odt files (which are just zipfiles) there is an XML file that holds all of the document's text named content.xml. All of the characters between the XML tags are the document's text, so by cutting out all of the tags, all that remains is the text (what the script below does).

The Code (Python)

#!/usr/bin/env python3
'''

Copyright 2012 Joseph Lewis <joehms22@gmail.com> | <joseph@josephlewis.net>

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
  notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
  copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
  in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
  distribution.
* Neither the name of the  nor the names of its
  contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
  this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
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(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

This software recieves an odt file from the command line, and returns the text 
from its path.

'''

import zipfile
import xml.etree.ElementTree
import sys


def extract_odt_text(fp):
    myFile = zipfile.ZipFile(fp)

    share = xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring(myFile.read('content.xml'))

    text_nodes = []

    for elt in share.iter():
        if elt.text != None:
            text_nodes.append(elt.text.strip())

    return " ".join(text_nodes)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if len(sys.argv) == 1:
        print "usage: odt.py FILENAME [FILENAME...]"
    else:
        for arg in sys.argv:
            try:
                print(extract_odt_text(arg))
            except zipfile.BadZipfile:
                pass