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10.1 Invoking convert-ly

The LilyPond input syntax is routinely changed to simplify it or improve it in different ways. As a side effect of this, the LilyPond interpreter often is no longer compatible with older input files. To remedy this, the program convert-ly can be used to deal with most of the syntax changes between LilyPond versions.

It uses \version statements in the input files to detect the old version number. In most cases, to upgrade your input file it is sufficient to run

covert-ly -e myfile.ly

If there are no changes to myfile.ly and file called myfile.ly.NEW is created, then myfile.ly is already updated.

To upgrade LilyPond fragments in texinfo files, use

convert-ly --from=... --to=... --no-version *.itely

In general, the program is invoked as follows:

convert-ly [option]... file...

The following options can be given:

-e,--edit
Do an inline edit of the input file. Overrides --output.
-f,--from=from-patchlevel
Set the version to convert from. If this is not set, convert-ly will guess this, on the basis of \version strings in the file.
-o,--output=file
Set the output file to write.
-n,--no-version
Normally, convert-ly adds a \version indicator to the output. Specifying this option suppresses this.
-s, --show-rules
Show all known conversions and exit.
--to=to-patchlevel
Set the goal version of the conversion. It defaults to the latest available version.
-h, --help
Print usage help.

convert-ly always converts up to the last syntax change handled by it. This means that the \version number left in the file is usually lower than the version of convert-ly itself.

Bugs

Not all language changes are handled. Only one output option can be specified.


There are a few things that the convert-ly cannot handle. Here's a list of limitations
that the community has complained about.

This bug report structure has been chosen because convert-ly has a structure that doesn't
allow to smoothly implement all needed changes. Thus this is just a wishlist, placed
here for reference.

1.6->2.0:
 Doesn't always convert figured bass correctly, specifically things like {< >}. Mats' comment on working around this:
   To be able to run convert-ly
   on it, I first replaced all occurencies of '{<' to some dummy like '{#'
   and similarly I replaced '>}' with '&}'. After the conversion, I could
   then change back from '{ #' to '{ <' and from '& }' to '> }'.
 Doesn't convert all text markup correctly. Only very simple cases are fixed.
2.0->2.2:
 Doesn't handle \partcombine
 Doesn't do \addlyrics => \lyricsto, this breaks some scores with multiple stanzas.
2.2->2.4:
 \turnOff (used in \set Staff.VoltaBracket = \turnOff) is not properly converted.
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This page is for LilyPond-2.5.11 (development-branch).

Report errors to <bug-lilypond@gnu.org>.

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