CMD method to convert .nb file into .m file

Question

.nb file consists of the boxes, and the .m file is a pure text file, what can help to share on GitHub. Of course, we can open a .nb file with Mathematica, then Save As... it as a .m file. But I don't want to cost much time to open the FrontEnd to do such thing. If the CMD command can do this, it will help a lot. Is it possible?

I'm using Windows 10, of course, if someone provide a method based on other operation system, it is welcome here.

I think use FilePrint in wolframscript can do this, but actually it is don't work for me.

Potentially useful ExportPacket function here: https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/1411/363 — Chris Degnen, Jan 12 '18 at 19:57
If you wish to use GitHub versioning functionality for collaborate work (what normally isn't handy with Wolfram Notebooks), you can try the “one Cell - one line” code format inside of NB files. — Alexey Popkov, Jan 13 '18 at 08:34
Strongly related if not a duplicate: "Programmatically convert notebook input cells to text file." — Alexey Popkov, Jan 13 '18 at 08:49
@AlexeyPopkov I think it is not duplicate, I don't hope to launch Mathemaitca in this question. — yode, Jan 13 '18 at 08:53
Also strongly related: "Converting a notebook to plain text programmatically." This method doesn't use FrontEnd at all. — Alexey Popkov, Jan 13 '18 at 08:56
For simple Notebooks (with code only inside of input cells) the method shown here and here will work (and it doesn't use FrontEnd). — Alexey Popkov, Jan 13 '18 at 09:05
Related: "Convert a Notebook directly to a package with boiler plate." — Alexey Popkov, Jan 13 '18 at 09:12

mrz · Answer 1 · 2018-01-13T08:14:09.830

3

You can use the following code to convert all .nb files in all sub-directories in a root directory dir to .m files (see also this ):

ChoiceDialog[{FileNameSetter[Dynamic[dir], "Directory"], Dynamic[dir]}];
notebookFiles = FileNames["*.nb", dir, Infinity]
num = Length[notebookFiles];

Do[
    file = notebookFiles[[i]];
    notebookText = Import[file, "Text"];

    Export[
      StringDrop[file, -2] <> "m", 
      StringRiffle[NotebookImport[file, "Input" -> "InputText"], "\n"], 
      "Text"
    ];
    , {i, 1, num}
];

edited Jan 13 '18 at 08:14

answered Jan 12 '18 at 19:46

mrz

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Problem is I think yode is explicitly trying to avoid using the FE. Can NotebookImport work without it? – b3m2a1 Jan 13 '18 at 00:42
@ b3m2a1: As I understand Yode does not not want to do the conversion by opening each notebook and then saving over the menu, because it is too much time consuming if one has a lot of notebooks. The code I show above can be executed in an external notebook and converts all your notebook files to .m files at once. – mrz Jan 13 '18 at 07:52
Ah I see. I thought he wanted a CLI solution. – b3m2a1 Jan 13 '18 at 07:53
Yes, I just don't open Mathematica to do it. I hope to use command method. – yode Jan 13 '18 at 08:16

CMD method to convert .nb file into .m file

1 Answers1