Script to convert WordPress posts to plain text files

wxr2txt.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

"""This script converts WXR file to a number of plain text files.

WXR stands for "WordPress eXtended RSS", which basically is just a
regular XML file. This script extracts entries from the WXR file into
plain text files. Output format: article name prefixed by date for
posts, article name for pages.

Usage: wxr2txt.py filename [-o output_dir]
"""

import os
import re
import sys
from xml.etree import ElementTree

NAMESPACES = {
		'content': 'http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/',
		'wp': 'http://wordpress.org/export/1.2/',
}
USAGE_STRING = "Usage: wxr2txt.py filename [-o output_dir]"


def main(argv):
	filename, output_dir = _parse_and_validate_output(argv)
	try:
		data = ElementTree.parse(filename).getroot()
	except ElementTree.ParseError:
		_error("Invalid input file format. Can not parse the input.")
	page_counter, post_counter = 0, 0
	for post in data.find('channel').findall('item'):
		post_type = post.find('wp:post_type', namespaces=NAMESPACES).text
		if post_type not in ('post', 'page'):
			continue
		content = post.find('content:encoded', namespaces=NAMESPACES).text
		date = post.find('wp:post_date', namespaces=NAMESPACES).text
		title = post.find('title').text
		date = date.split(' ')[0].replace('-', '')
		title = re.sub(r'[_]+', '_', re.sub(r'[^a-z0-9+]', '_', title.lower()))
		if post_type == 'post':
			post_filename = date + '_' + title + '.txt'
			post_counter += 1
		else:
			post_filename = title + '.txt'
			page_counter += 1
		with open(os.path.join(output_dir, post_filename), 'w') as post_file:
			post_file.write(content.encode('utf8'))
		post_counter += 1
	print "Saved {} posts and {} pages in directory '{}'.".format(
			post_counter, page_counter, output_dir)


def _parse_and_validate_output(argv):
	if len(argv) not in (2, 4):
		_error("Wrong number of arguments.")
	filename = argv[1]
	if not os.path.isfile(filename):
		_error("Input file does not exist (or not enough permissions).")
	output_dir = argv[3] if len(argv) == 4 and argv[2] == '-o' else os.getcwd()
	if not os.path.isdir(output_dir):
		_error("Output directory does not exist (or not enough permissions).")
	return filename, output_dir


def _error(text):
	print text
	print USAGE_STRING
	sys.exit(1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
	main(sys.argv)

Great tool. It must be kind of old as not working with Python 2.6, so to make it work with Python 3.6 you need to remove the parameter name and just write:

post_type = post.find('wp:post_type', NAMESPACES).text

and put () around each print statement

and I just deleted this line as it generates a syntax error due to the change in Python version as well:

print "Saved {} posts and {} pages in directory '{}'.".format(
post_counter, page_counter, output_dir)

Thank you. I've been using your script to provide an alternative and accessible archive of our site's posts:

I've been struggling with capturing certain metadata: categories, tags, co-authors, as well as wp:postmeta data stored in a wp:meta_key/we:meta_value format. Here's my fork, so far.

This script works beautifully. It's exactly what I needed considering that I decided to take a site offline forever but keep all the content locally. Thank you.

On Mac osX:

1. I moved both wxr2txt.py and example.xml to a desired folder.
2. went to Terminal and cd ~/path/to/desired/folder and
3. executed the command: python wxr2txt.py example.xml

and voila: all my post, drafts, pages appeared in over a hundred separate .txt files.

One shortcoming, of this script is you will need to clean up the HTML tags and comments such as <!-- wp:paragraph --> and <p> but a simple find and replace all with a <blank-space> in your text editor should do the trick.

after 3 errors regarding calling print without parentheses, I'm stuck on line 48 with the error

post_file.write(content.encode('utf8'))
TypeError: write() argument must be str, not bytes

I barely understand python, so I'm struggling through because as a WordPress command line geek, this would be marvelous to get working.

after 3 errors regarding calling print without parentheses, I'm stuck on line 48 with the error

post_file.write(content.encode('utf8')) TypeError: write() argument must be str, not bytes

I barely understand python, so I'm struggling through because as a WordPress command line geek, this would be marvelous to get working.

for this line:
with open(os.path.join(output_dir, post_filename), 'w') as post_file:
replace 'w' with 'wb'

Why? What does that mean and what does it do?

Why? What does that mean and what does it do?

I don't really know the details of "why is this actually a problem" but needed to get this script working and came across this post:

https://www.sharooq.com/solved-typeerror-write-argument-must-be-str-not-bytes-in-python

Excellent. Thanks.

Can verify the change suggested by @gkv-ckultzow has worked in Python 3.12, to replace 'w' with 'wb' to read:
with open(os.path.join(output_dir, post_filename), 'wb') as post_file:

Also for Python 3.12, put () around the content in each print statement as mentioned by @werowe. For example:

print("Saved {} posts and {} pages in directory '{}'.".format(
			post_counter, page_counter, output_dir))

No changes to any output text files created after executing the program, all 60 posts were captured in plain text in individual text files. Thanks.