[SOLVED] Export TB 91.3 contacts to format VCF 2.1 (Linux)

[Cbhihe]

Subject: How to export TB 91.3 contacts to format VCF 2.1

Hi, before Nov. 2020, TB started using VCF 4.0 to export address book contacts (beside csv, tsv and LDIF).
Prior to that I happyly exported to VCF 2.1 or 3.0.
I need to go back to exporting to VCF 2.1 to feed the exported file to some other legacy application that will only consider VCF 2.1.
Is there a way to do so with TB 91.3 (under Linux) ? If so how ?

[tanstaafl]

I suggest you find a utility that will convert .vcf files from one version to another.

https://vcftools.github.io/examples.html and https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/1-bcftools/ are two possibilities.

[DaveRo]

I contributed to a thread in the last year or so (I can't remember where - here? - alt.comp.software.thunderbird? ) where somebody had a similar problem. ISTR hey got round it by simply changing the version number at the top of the file. The receiving program just ignored everything it didn't recognize and was happy with the format of the item(s) it needed. Worth a try.

If you can't find a utility, SED can certainly do it if you know what fields are required.

[Cbhihe]

@tanstaafl:
Your pointers to VCF version conversion tools have nothing to do with VCF as in "V-Card Format". Those are text-processing tools where the text consists of gene info for genomics. The acronyms VCF and BCF in this context stand for Variant Call Format (VCF) and its binary counterpart BCF. I originally made the same mistake you did, **before** posting here, when I snooped about the net trying to look up tools. It's only by looking directly at code, trying to gauge how many regular expressions I could scoop up from it in order to carry out my conversion, that I realized those had absolutely nothing to do with V-Card Format stuff. haha !

@DaveRo:
I had already started on that path, thinking that acting on the output format from inside Thunderbird was not possible. I saw zilch readily available stuff so, yes, `sed` or `awk` are strong candidates. I just did not want to reinvent the wheel.

I close this thread.