This is an archived work last updated in 1996, it is not expected to build out-of-the-box. Abundant and better quality solutions are available today.
sera2any is a utility for converting Ge'ez text written in SERA into other useful systems. Currently supported output types are Unicode, JIS, JUNET, Java, Agafari, ALXEthiopian, Feedel, and WashRa.
Support for additional MS Windows font systems should be forthcoming. SERA2Any will hopefully have an X interface soon and should also become an "Any2Any" type tool. The purpose of the project is to provide a SERA and Unicode I/O utility to make the different MS Windows Ethiopic font systems communicatable. That is you can import a "WashRa" file into any software when you only have "Feedel" fonts installed. Or convert the WashRa file into SERA and email it to a friend.
An MS Windows Interface would make the tool a great asset to the community. People knowledgeable in Visual Basic who would like to contribute to this project please contact yacob@padis.gn.apc.org .
After successful installation you may use your favorite ASCII editor to write a SERA style Latin file. sera2any can then convert the file into one of the supported outputs. sera2any writes output to standard out and error messages to standard error. Options (below) may be used in combination,
Generic Usage:
sera2any [options] filein > fileout
Real Example:
sera2any -o jis-html -stats -l amh etc/fidel > fidel.html
sera2any -o washra-rtf -l amh etc/fidel > fidel.rtf
Options Are As Follows:
-c Map ASCII colon, ":", to Ge'ez colon (-:) and
not to the default Ge'ez wordspace (:). Ge'ez word
space may now only be given by `: .
-fromdos
The input file is DOS text, strip out DOS ^M end of
line characters. Output will be in Unix text.
This option impacts parsing speed and is only
available when sera2any is compiled for DOS sup-
port.
-h Echoes help list to stderr and exits.
-html Forces HTML conversion, leaving text between < and >
or & and ; as Latin.
-l LL(L)
Set starting language to that specified by LL or
LLL where LL(L) is an ISO-639 two or three letter
identifier. Supported languages are: am(h), ge(z),
la(t), & ti(r).
-o system
Specify output of type system. System defaults as
JUNET or may be one of: agafari, alxet, feedel, sera,
jis, java, unicode, or washra. Appending -html to the
system forces the scanner to leave as Latin all text
between < and > or & and ;.
Example:
-o uni [Unicode Output]
-o jis-html [JIS Output With HTML Filtering]
-q Map ASCII question mark, "?", to Ge'ez 3-Dot
question mark (`?) and not to the default Ge'ez
stylized question mark (?). The use of ? and `? in
SERA text are now reversed.
-rtf Output in Rich Text Format. Supported for Agafari,
ALXEthiopian, Feedel, and Washra fonts currently.
-s Map ASCII space, " ", to Ge'ez wordspace (:).
-stats system
Provides a Fidel table with statistical output of
character occurrences into the files "fidel.stats"
and sorted statistics in "fidel2.stats". System
defaults as sera or may be one of junet, jis,
alxet, agafari, feedel, unicode, or washra.
Appending -html to the system name will format the
statistics output for HTML.
Example: -stats jis-html
-todos The input file is Unix text, insert DOS ^M end of
line characters. Output will be in DOS text. This
option impacts parsing speed and is only available
when sera2any is compiled for DOS support.
-v Echo version number and exit.
If bugs are found in the sera2any converter, please open an issue:
https://github.com/dyacob/sera2latex/issues
Extended documents for The System for Ethiopic Representation in ASCII (SERA) by World Wide Web at :
http://abyssiniagateway.net/fidel/fidel.html
http://abyssiniagateway.net/fidel/sera-faq.html
The file "etc/fidel" gives an outline of the ASCII system. Also sera man page are now provided. Briefly, characters are representation goes like :
Consonants:
me mu mi ma mE m mo mWa
Independent Vowels:
e/a* u/U i a/A E I o/O e3
Independent Vowels Following a 6th Form Consonant:
l'e l'u l'i l'a l'E l'I l'o
also --> lU lA lI lO
Consonants With 12 forms:
hWe hWu/hW' hWi hWa hWE
*NOTE: "a" may be used in place of "e" for the first lone
vowel ONLY in Amharic text zones. See INSTALL for
setting Amharic as a default language.