Aperture Database - Can it be read dynamically or exported to XML?

Thanks for the pointers on these John, they were really helpful. After some digging, I've been able to read the Aperture database with success, although it'll take me some time to get the schema understood.

I do find it odd (now that I've been able to see some of teh innards) that although Aperture is fairly open in terms of what you can do to extend it, but there is NO documention or online insight into the structures that Aperture works out.

I'm left to reverse-engineer whatever I can see in order to simplify my own workflow - I'd certainly prefer this more than a locked down structure, but it would be great to see the AP developers provide some hints as to how us developers can extend their great product.

Thanks again for the help - 'tis appreciated!

Ted

Scott, I don't actually intend to attach another database, I just want to expose my own view on the data in order to use it more effectively in my own application.

My troubles lie largely in that I am a new Mac OSX convert, so I'm still learning how to take advantage of the different way at looking at file systems and services that a OSX box offers vs a Windows environment. For example, the "Show Package Contents" was totally from left-field from what I could find. 🙂

Aperture does have some of the most powerful tools, and I've already integrated it into my workflow - as it was either Lightroom or Aperture. They're fairly comparible, but both fall short in exposing the structures they allow a user to use to organize their shots. If anyone here knows of a place where I can work with other Aperture extenders, that would be extremely helpful. My google searches so far have been fruitless. 😟

Much appreciated for the insight!

Cheers,

Ted

Hi John - I'm not yet entirely sure what I'm doing, but so far I've been able to:

- make a duplicate of just the SQL data
- open the copy (to preserve my real data)
- selected rows from all tables (data can be modified, but I'm not sure yet on creating human-readible views of the Aperture data.

To get the duplicate, I had to first navigate to my aperture library. Opening my terminal, I executed a CD command to:

cd "/Aperture Photo Libraries/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Aperture.aplib" [enter]

Here you'll find the SQL database, called "Library.apdb". Copy this to a safe location so you can muck about with it. (I used my home directory) using:

copy Library.aplibrary ~/testdatabase.apdb [enter]

Change to your home directory by:

cd ~ [enter]

Still from the terminal window, you can open the database with:

sqlite3 testdatabase.apdb [enter]

From here it seems to be fairly standard SQL based commands to manipulate the data, but I did find it a bit quirky. With poor documentation online, the important thing is to be sure to end all SELECT, INSERT or UPDATE commands with a semi-colon ; . Until I got this, I was in terminal ****. 🙂

You can get a list of all the tables in the database by using:

.tables [enter] once inside the SqlLite3 command prompt. If you use

SELECT * FROM zrkkeyword; - you should see a selection of all the keywords in your library. I am not yet aware of the database schema or rules as it applies to ensuring valid Aperture data, I hope to get that identified over the next week or two.

Hope it helps - if you find anything, lemme know. 🙂

Cheers,

ted