ELAN2CHAT – ELAN XML to CHAT Conversion

Status: Current Last updated: 2026-05-12 11:27 EDT

Purpose

Converts ELAN annotation files (.eaf) into CHAT format. ELAN uses a time-aligned annotation format stored as XML, with time slots referenced by alignable annotations within tiers.

Usage

chatter clan elan2chat input.eaf

Options

The corpus name in @ID headers is hardcoded to "elan_corpus" (crates/clan/clan-core/src/converters/elan2chat.rs:230); there is no CLI flag to override it.

Conversion Details

• ELAN tier IDs are mapped to CHAT speaker codes (first 3 characters, uppercased)
• Time slots are resolved to millisecond timing bullets
• Annotations are merged across tiers and sorted by start time
• All speakers are assigned the Unidentified participant role

Input Format

ELAN XML (.eaf) files containing <TIER> elements with <ALIGNABLE_ANNOTATION> entries referencing <TIME_SLOT> elements for timing.

Output

A well-formed CHAT file with @UTF8, @Begin/@End headers, @Languages, @Participants, and @ID headers for each discovered speaker. Each ELAN annotation becomes a timed utterance.

Implementation Note

Uses simple string-based XML parsing to avoid adding a quick-xml dependency. Sufficient for well-formed ELAN files.

Differences from CLAN

• Uses typed AST for CHAT generation
• Produces valid, well-formed CHAT output

Reference

See the CLAN manual for the original ELAN2CHAT command documentation.