Re: Importing other file formats

[Richard Shann]

On Thu, 2021-03-18 at 10:52 -0500, Jeremiah Benham wrote:
> Richard,
> I was wondering what the preferred method of inputting other file
> formats is. I have been using tuxguitar to open up these files. I
> then
> would hide the tab because I want my students reading the music and
> not looking at tabs. Tuxguitar can export to lilypond and midi. I
> could probably import it with this but I was wondering how I can go
> about it with less steps or if I can open it up denemo. I have been
> looking over tuxguitar source code specifically the portion of the
> gpx
> file parser. My question is, If I were to write something to import
> it
> denemo should I make it a separate utility that converts it into
> lilypond and then have denemo import it. Is that how the musicxml and
> midi import works?

Both musicxml and midi are imported by custom C-code routines. LilyPond
is imported by a mixture of Scheme (a lexer-parser in Scheme) and C.
I would forget about MIDI import if Tuxguitar can export LilyPond. But
whether the Tux->Lily->Denemo route is feasible would depend on what
sort of Lily output syntax is exported by Tux - the simplest thing
would be to give it a try on a piece with the most complexity you're
interested in and if creates valid LilyPond but fails in the import to
Denemo just post the LilyPond syntax in case it's just a trivial
problem.

The other route would be to write a musicxml exporter for Tuxguitar - I
just did this for Denemo, so I'm up to speed on how to write out
MusicXML so I cold probably help there.

Richard