Rust Pinyin Tone Mark Converter

Introduction

This Rust program will take a source text file with numerical Pinyin markup (Ni3 hao3) and it will convert it to use the proper Pinyin tone marks (Nǐ Hǎo).

The rules for writing the source documents are very simple: For the pinyin corresponding to each character put a number from 1-4 following it for the tone. Ignore the neutral tone. Use v for ü.

Source Pinyin Examples

• 你好(nǐhǎo) you would write: ni3hao3.
• 现在让我们都考虑一下(Xiànzài ràng wǒmen dōu kǎolǜ yíxià) write: Xian4zai4 rang4 wo3men dou1 kao3lv4 yi2xia4 (not the v used for ü).

Installation

The best way to install this is with the Docker container. Run the following:

git clone <REPO>
cd pinyin_tone_marks
docker build -t pinyin_tone_marks:latest .

Running

Run with docker. Use a bind mount to link your local directory with /data and then use the paths /data/INPUT.md and /data/OUTPUT.md so the container knows where to find the files inside the bind mount.

docker run -v "$PWD:/data" -t pinyin_tone_marks:latest /data/input.md /data/output.md

• In this example input.md is the input file which must exist in your current directory. This is the source file that contains the text with the pinyin tone numbers.
• The file output.md does not need to exist, it will be created. It will be overwritten if it is present. This is the output file that will contain the text after it has been converted to use tone marks.

Acknowledgements

This is inspired by the Pinyin Joe macros for Word and Excel, though I totally designed this implementation myself and did not even examine the source code for those macros as this was a programming challenge I wanted to do for fun:

https://www.pinyinjoe.com/pinyin/pinyin_macro_faq.htm