zhconv

What it is and what it does

zhconv is a Chinese text converter that transforms between Simplified and Traditional Chinese using vocabulary tables derived from MediaWiki. It supports six regional variants—Mainland (zh-cn), Taiwan (zh-tw), Hong Kong (zh-hk), Singapore (zh-sg), generic Simplified (zh-hans), and generic Traditional (zh-hant)—and implements MediaWiki's full manual conversion syntax for context-aware transformations.

The package provides both a Python API (`convert()` and `convert_for_mw()` functions) and a command-line tool. It uses maximum forward matching to resolve ambiguous character sequences. No runtime dependencies are required, making it lightweight to install, though the source distribution has high install friction and the project has not been actively maintained since late 2021.

Use it for:

• Convert user-generated content or documentation between Chinese regional variants in web applications or content management systems.
• Batch-process Chinese text corpora to standardize between Simplified and Traditional forms for NLP or linguistic analysis.
• Support multilingual Chinese interfaces by dynamically converting text to the user's preferred regional variant.
• Parse or transform Chinese text embedded in MediaWiki markup or similar structured formats with variant-specific rules.
• Build Chinese language tools or libraries that need to normalize text across regional boundaries.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Converts text between Simplified and Traditional Chinese using MediaWiki vocabulary tables, supporting regional variants including Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore Chinese.

Yes, if you need Chinese Simplified-Traditional conversion and can tolerate dormant maintenance. The package has no runtime dependencies, no known vulnerabilities, and a stable API grounded in MediaWiki standards. Install friction is high due to source distribution, but the core functionality is straightforward. Not recommended for new projects requiring active maintenance or support; consider it for stable, self-contained use cases where regional Chinese text conversion is a minor feature.

Install

zhconv on PyPI

pip install zhconv

uv add zhconv

poetry add zhconv

Installing zhconv

Before you install

High install friction due to source distribution; package is dormant (last release 2021-10-31, last commit 2024-04-17) with no active maintenance signal, though the repository remains public and unarchived.

License in practice

GPLv2+ copyleft license requires derivative works and distributions to be licensed under compatible terms; suitable for open-source projects but imposes obligations on proprietary use.

Quickstart

pip install zhconv
from zhconv import convert
print(convert(u'我幹什麼不干你事。', 'zh-cn'))

Requires Python 2 or 3; source distribution may require a C compiler or build tools on some systems.

Verify before relying

• Whether the package works reliably with modern Python versions (3.10+) given dormant maintenance status.
• Performance characteristics and accuracy on large texts or specialized vocabularies beyond MediaWiki's tables.
• Compatibility with current dependency chains in active Python projects.

Package facts

Evidence: zhconv-1.4.3.tar.gz

Keywords: chinese, conversion

Tags

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