finger2gemtext - A simple library for converting finger output to Gemtext

Introduction

finger2gemtext is a small and simple library that provides code for converting finger responses into the hypertext markup language of the Gemini project.

Installation

finger2gemtext is available from pypi and can be installed with your package installer of choice.

With pip:

pip install finger2gemtext

With uv:

uv add finger2gemtext

Quick start

The library provides a single main conversion function called finger_to_gemtext. It is passed a string that is the finger response you wish to convert, and the result is a string that is the resulting Gemtext.

A very minimal converter might look like:

import fileinput
from .convert import finger_to_gemtext

def convert() -> None:
    """Parse the input from stdin or files and print the parsed Gemtext."""
    with fileinput.input() as finger_content:
        print(finger_to_gemtext("".join(finger_content)))

While it is primarily intended as a library to be used from other Python code, it does contain a simple test command line tool, which can be accessed either via the Python -m switch, or depending on your environment, via the finger2gemtext command. For example, if you were to run this command:

finger @typed-hole.org | finger2gemtext

you'd get output like this:

[typed-hole.org]

Welcome to the Typed Hole
Uptime:  14:10:28 up 248 days, 22:12,  0 user,  load average: 0.44, 0.34, 0.44
Users currently logged in: probably julien

Available fingers:

=> /finger/username username:           get user infos
=> /finger/feed feed:                   get my latest toots
=> /finger/lobsters lobsters:           get lobste.rs hottest stories
=> /finger/weather weather:             get typed-hole.org current weather
=> /finger/temp temp:                   get typed-hole.org current CPU temperature
=> /finger/cyoa cyoa:                   finger your own adventure
=> /finger/textfile textfile:           read a random textfile from textfiles.com
=> /finger/smog smog:                   read SMOG e-zine issues

See the main documentation for the full API.