Bible Passage Reference Parser

This project is a Typescript implementation of a Bible-passage reference parser (seeing John 3:16, for example, and both understanding that it's a Bible reference and converting it into a form that computers can process). It parses Bible Books, Chapters, and Verses—thus the file names involving "BCV Parser."

Its primary use is to interpret query strings for use in a Bible application. As such, it is designed to handle typos and ambiguous references. It can extract BCVs from text but may be too aggressive for some uses. (See Caveats.)

It should be fairly speedy for most applications, taking under a millisecond to parse a short string and able to parse about 160KB of reference-heavy text per second on a single core.

The code occupies about 120KB minified and 25KB gzipped.

This project also provides extensively commented code and 4.7 million real-world strings that you can use as a starting point to build your own BCV parser.

Try a demo of the Bible passage reference parser.

Upgrade Guide from v2 to v3

First, you don't need to update any of your code. The /js folder contains a copy of the v2.0.1 code. It hasn't changed at all and works exactly the same.

But if you do want access to new features, I recommend using the code in /esm version of the code, which uses import-style modules and takes an argument to indicate the language you want to support.

CommonJS files (require-style) are available in the /cjs folder.

Note that the files in /esm and /cjs require ESM2022, which means they'll work in Node 16 and later and browsers released after mid-2021.

Setup

In a Browser (<script> module)

<script type="module">
  import { bcv_parser } from "esm/bcv_parser.js";
  import * as lang from "esm/lang/en.js";
  const bcv = new bcv_parser(lang);
  console.log( bcv.parse("John 1").osis() ); // John.1
</script>

Note that no variables are accessible from outside the <script> tag. If that presents a problem for you, you could potentially do something like:

<script type="module">
  import { bcv_parser } from "esm/bcv_parser.js";
  import * as lang from "esm/lang/en.js";
  window.bcv = new bcv_parser(lang);
  window.dispatchEvent(new Event("bcv_loaded"));
</script>
<script>
	// Once the module is loaded, it's accessible as the global `bcv` object.`
  window.addEventListener("bcv_loaded", () => {
    console.log(window.bcv.parse("John 15").osis());
  });
</script>

In a Browser (regular <script> tag)

<script src="/path/cjs/en_bcv_parser.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script>
  const bcv = new bcv_parser();
  console.log( bcv.parse("John 1").osis() ); // John.1
</script>

Node.js (npm)

To install from the command line:

npm i bible-passage-reference-parser

Node Usage (v16 and Later)

To run using ES modules (newer style). This style requires using a language object when you create a new instance of the parser object.

import { bcv_parser } from "bible-passage-reference-parser/esm/en_bcv_parser.js";
import * as lang from "bible-passage-reference-parser/esm/lang/en.js";
const bcv = new bcv_parser(lang);
console.log( bcv.parse("John 1").osis() ); // John.1

Node Usage (Before v16)

To run using CommonJS:

var bcv_parser = require("bible-passage-reference-parser/cjs/en_bcv_parser").bcv_parser;
var bcv = new bcv_parser();
console.log( bcv.parse("John 1").osis() ); // John.1

Node.js (Manual, v16 and Later)

This example uses English. After downloading the parser and the language file you want (assuming you put the language file in a lang subfolder):

import { bcv_parser } from "./bcv_parser.js"; // Adjust paths as needed
import * as lang from "./lang/en.js";
const bcv = new bcv_parser(lang);
console.log( bcv.parse("John 1").osis() ); // John.1

Parsing

Assuming you have an object named bcv:

.parse("[string to parse]")

This function does the parsing. It returns the bcv object and is suitable for chaining.

bcv.parse("John 3:16"); // Returns the `bcv` object.

.parse_with_context("[string to parse]", "[string context]")

This function parses a string with a string context as the second argument. As with .parse(), it returns the bcv object and is suitable for chaining. Use this function if you have a string that starts with what you suspect is a reference and you already know the context. For example, maybe you're parsing a footnote that refers to "verse 16," and you know that the footnote is attached to John 3:

bcv.parse_with_context("verse 16", "John 3"); // Returns the `bcv` object.
bcv.osis(); // "John.3.16"

It only matches relevant content at the beginning of the first argument; parsing chapter 2 will work with context (assuming chapter 2 exists: bcv.parse_with_context("chapter 2", "Hebrews")), but not my favorite chapter is chapter 2. (In fact, if you .parse_with_context() that last string, you'd find that the parser read is chapter 2 as Isa.2 because Is 2 is text that someone could use to refer to Isaiah 2.)

Without this function, you could manually prepend the context to the string, but it could get messy: with the context John 3:16, the string verse 17 would become John 3:16,verse 17. Depending on your settings, this string might parse as John.3.16-John.3.17, which isn't what you want. .parse_with_context() lets you avoid such messiness.

Passing a translation as part of the context—bcv.parse_with_context("verse 16", "John 3 NIV")—doesn't apply the translation to the first argument. Translations always propagate backward, not forward (Matt 5:6 (NIV) rather than NIV: Matt 5:6). You can set the versification_system option to change the default translation.

.osis()

This function returns a single OSIS for the entire input, providing no information about any translations included in the input.

bcv.parse("John 3:16 NIV").osis();
// "John.3.16"
bcv.parse("John 3:16-17").osis();
// "John.3.16-John.3.17"
bcv.parse("John 3:16,18").osis();
// "John.3.16,John.3.18"
bcv.parse("John 3:16,18. ### Matthew 1 (NIV, ESV)").osis();
// "John.3.16,John.3.18,Matt.1"

.osis_and_translations()

This function returns an array. Each element in the array is an [OSIS, Translation] tuple (both are strings).

bcv.parse("John 3:16 NIV").osis_and_translations();
// [["John.3.16", "NIV"]]
bcv.parse("John 3:16-17").osis_and_translations();
// [["John.3.16-John.3.17", ""]]
bcv.parse("John 3:16,18").osis_and_translations();
// [["John.3.16,John.3.18", ""]]
bcv.parse("John 3:16,18. ### Matthew 1 (NIV, ESV)").osis_and_translations();
// [["John.3.16,John.3.18", ""], ["Matt.1", "NIV,ESV"]]

.osis_and_indices()

This function returns an array. Each element in the array is an object with osis (a string), translations (an array of translation identifiers—an empty string unless a translation is specified), and indices (the start and end position in the string). The indices key is designed to be consistent with Twitter's implementation (the first character in a string has indices [0, 1]). If you're looking to tag references in text, this function is probably the one you want.

bcv.parse("John 3:16 NIV").osis_and_indices();
// [{"osis": "John.3.16", "translations": ["NIV"], "indices": [0, 13]}]
bcv.parse("John 3:16-17").osis_and_indices();
// [{"osis": "John.3.16-John.3.17", "translations": [""], "indices": [0, 12]}]
bcv.parse("John 3:16,18").osis_and_indices();
// [{"osis": "John.3.16,John.3.18", "translations": [""], "indices": [0, 12]}]
bcv.parse("John 3:16,18. ### Matthew 1 (NIV, ESV)").osis_and_indices();
// [{"osis": "John.3.16,John.3.18", "translations": [""], "indices":[0, 12]}, {"osis": "Matt.1", "translations": ["NIV","ESV"], "indices": [18, 38]}]

.parsed_entities()

If you want to know a lot about how the parser handled the input string, use this function. It can include messages if it adjusted the input or had trouble parsing it (e.g., if given an invalid reference).

You probably do not need to use this function.

This function returns an array with a fairly complicated structure. The entities key can contain nested entities if you're parsing a sequence of references.

bcv.set_options({"invalid_passage_strategy": "include", "invalid_sequence_strategy": "include"});
bcv.parse("John 3, 99").parsed_entities();

Returns:

[{ "osis": "John.3",
  "indices": [0, 10],
  "translations": [""],
  "entity_id": 0,
  "entities": [{
  	"osis": "John.3",
    "type": "bc",
    "indices": [0, 6],
    "translations": [""],
    "start": { "b": "John", "c": 3, "v": 1 },
    "end": { "b": "John", "c": 3, "v": 36 },
    "enclosed_indices": [-1, -1],
    "entity_id": 0,
    "entities": [{
      "start": { "b": "John", "c": 3, "v": 1 },
      "end": { "b": "John", "c": 3, "v": 36 },
      "valid": { "valid": true, "messages": {} },
      "type": "bc",
      "absolute_indices": [0, 6],
      "enclosed_absolute_indices": [-1, -1]
    	}]
    },
    { "osis": "",
      "type": "integer",
      "indices": [8, 10],
      "translations": [""],
      "start": { "b": "John", "c": 99 },
      "end": { "b": "John", "c": 99 },
      "enclosed_indices": [-1, -1],
      "entity_id": 0,
      "entities": [{
        "start": { "b": "John", "c": 99 },
        "end": { "b": "John", "c": 99 },
        "valid": { "valid": false, "messages": { "start_chapter_not_exist": 21 } },
        "type": "integer",
        "absolute_indices": [8, 10],
        "enclosed_absolute_indices": [-1, -1]
      }]
    }
  ]
}]

You may also see an alternates object if you provide an ambiguous book abbreviation (Ph 2 could mean "Phil.2" or "Phlm.1.2"; "Phil.2" appears as the main entity, while "Phlm.1.2" appears in [0].entities[0].entities[0].alternates in this case).

.include_apocrypha([Boolean])

This function takes a single Boolean value (true or false). If true, it tries to find the following books in the Apocrypha (or Deuterocanonicals): Tob, Jdt, GkEsth, Wis, Sir, Bar, PrAzar, Sus, Bel, SgThree, EpJer, 1Macc, 2Macc, 3Macc, 4Macc, 1Esd, 2Esd, PrMan, Ps151. Your canon may vary in the number of books, their order, or the number of verses in each chapter. If you set the value to false (the default behavior), it ignores books in the Apocrypha.

bcv.parse("Tobit 1").osis(); // ""
bcv.include_apocrypha(true);
bcv.parse("Tobit 1").osis(); // "Tob.1"

You shouldn't call include_apocrypha() between calling parse() and one of the output functions—the output reflects the value of include_apocrypha() that was active during the call to parse(). You probably also don't want to call it every time you call parse()—it will slow down execution.

You might find it easier to use the testaments option to specify which testaments (Old, New, and Apocrypha) you want to identify.

.set_options({})

This function takes an object that sets parsing and output options. See Options for available keys and values. This function doesn't enforce valid values, but using values other than the ones described in Options will lead to unexpected behavior.

bcv.set_options({"osis_compaction_strategy": "bcv"});
bcv.parse("Genesis 1").osis(); // "Gen.1.1-Gen.1.31"

Administrative Functions

This function is separate from the parsing sequence and provides data that may be useful for other applications.

.translation_info("[translation]")

This function returns an object of data about the requested translation. You can use this data to determine, for example, the previous and next chapters for a given chapter, even when the given chapter is at the beginning or end of a book.

It takes an optional string argument that identifies the translation—if the translation is unknown, it returns data about the default translation. For English, abbreviations that will change the output are: default, vulgate, ceb, kjv, nab (or nabre), nlt, nrsv, and nrsvue. Sending this function the lower-cased translation output from osis_and_translations() or osis_and_indices() will return the correct translation information.

The returned object has the following structure:

{
  "alias": "default",
  "books": ["Gen", "Exod", "Lev", ...],
  "chapters": {"Gen": [31, 25, ...], "Exod": [22, 25, ...], ...},
  "order": {"Gen": 1, "Exod": 2, ...}
  "system": "default"
}

The system key identifies which versification is used. For example, .translation_info("niv") returns kjv for this key because the NIV uses KJV versification. Objects with identical system values are identical. system is a synonym for alias; these two keys are always identical; alias is an older way to refer to versification systems.

The books key lists the books in order, which you can use to find surrounding books. For example, if you know from order that "Exod": 2, you know that you can find it at books[1] (because the array is zero-based). Similarly, the book before Exod is at books[0], and the book after it is at books[2].

The chapters key lists the number of verses in each chapter: chapters["Gen"][0] tells you how many verses are in Genesis 1. Further, the length of each book's array tells you how many chapters are in each book: chapters["Gen"].length tells you how many chapters are in Genesis.

The order key returns the order in which the books appear in the translation, starting at 1.

Options

OSIS Output

• consecutive_combination_strategy: "combine"
  • combine: "Matt 5, 6, 7" → "Matt.5-Matt.7".
  • separate: "Matt 5, 6, 7" → "Matt.5,Matt.6,Matt.7".
• osis_compaction_strategy: "b"
  • b: OSIS refs get reduced to the shortest possible. "Gen.1.1-Gen.50.26" and "Gen.1-Gen.50" → "Gen", while "Gen.1.1-Gen.2.25" → "Gen.1-Gen.2".
  • bc: OSIS refs get reduced to complete chapters if possible, but not whole books. "Gen.1.1-Gen.50.26" → "Gen.1-Gen.50".
  • bcv: OSIS refs always include the full book, chapter, and verse. "Gen.1" → "Gen.1.1-Gen.1.31".

Sequence

• book_sequence_strategy: "ignore"
  • ignore: ignore any books on their own in sequences ("Gen Is 1" → "Isa.1").
  • include: any books that appear on their own get parsed according to book_alone_strategy ("Gen Is 1" → "Gen.1-Gen.50,Isa.1" if book_alone_strategy is full or ignore, or "Gen.1,Isa.1" if it's first_chapter).
• invalid_sequence_strategy: "ignore"
  • ignore: "Matt 99, Gen 1" sequence index starts at the valid Gen 1.
  • include: "Matt 99, Gen 1" sequence index starts at the invalid Matt 99.
• sequence_combination_strategy: "combine"
  • combine: sequential references in the text are combined into a single comma-separated OSIS string: "Gen 1, 3" → "Gen.1,Gen.3".
  • separate: sequential references in the text are separated into an array of their component parts: "Gen 1, 3" → ["Gen.1", "Gen.3"].
• punctuation_strategy: "us"
  • us: commas separate sequences, periods separate chapters and verses. "Matt 1, 2. 4" → "Matt.1,Matt.2.4".
  • eu: periods separate sequences, commas separate chapters and verses. "Matt 1, 2. 4" → "Matt.1.2,Matt.1.4".

Potentially Invalid Input

• invalid_passage_strategy: "ignore"
  • ignore: Include only valid passages in parsed_entities().
  • include: Include invalid passages in parsed_entities() (they still don't have OSIS values).
• non_latin_digits_strategy: "ignore"
  • ignore: treat non-Latin digits the same as any other character.
  • replace: replace non-Latin (0-9) numeric digits with Latin digits. This replacement occurs before any book substitution.
• passage_existence_strategy: "bcv"
  • Include b in the string to validate book order ("Revelation to Genesis" is invalid).
  • Include c in the string to validate chapter existence. If omitted, strings like "Genesis 51" (which doesn't exist) return as valid. Omitting c means that looking up full books will return 999 as the end chapter: "Genesis to Exodus" → "Gen.1-Exod.999".
  • Include v in the string to validate verse existence. If omitted, strings like Genesis 1:100 (which doesn't exist) return as valid. Omitting v means that looking up full chapters will return 999 as the end verse: "Genesis 1:2 to chapter 3" → "Gen.1.2-Gen.3.999".
  • Tested values are b, bc, bcv, bv, c, cv, v, and none. In all cases, single-chapter books still respond as single-chapter books to allow treating strings like Obadiah 2 as Obad.1.2.
• zero_chapter_strategy: "error"
  • error: zero chapters ("Matthew 0") are invalid.
  • upgrade: zero chapters are upgraded to 1: "Matthew 0" → "Matt.1".
  • Unlike zero_verse_strategy, chapter 0 isn't allowed.
• zero_verse_strategy: "error"
  • error: zero verses ("Matthew 5:0") are invalid.
  • upgrade: zero verses are upgraded to 1: "Matthew 5:0" → "Matt.5.1".
  • allow: zero verses are kept as-is: "Matthew 5:0" → "Matt.5.0". Some traditions use 0 for Psalm titles.
• single_chapter_1_strategy: "chapter"
  • chapter: treat "Jude 1" as referring to the complete book of Jude: Jude.1. People almost always want this output when they enter this text in a search box.
  • verse: treat "Jude 1" as referring to the first verse in Jude: Jude.1.1. If you're parsing specialized text that follows a style guide, you may want to set this option.

Context

• book_alone_strategy: "ignore"
  • ignore: any books that appear on their own don't get parsed as books ("Gen saw" doesn't trigger a match, but "Gen 1" does).
  • full: any books that appear on their own get parsed as the complete book ("Gen" → "Gen.1-Gen.50").
  • first_chapter: any books that appear on their own get parsed as the first chapter ("Gen" → "Gen.1").
• book_range_strategy: "ignore"
  • ignore: any books that appear on their own in a range are ignored ("Matt-Mark 2" → "Mark.2").
  • include: any books that appear on their own in a range are included as part of the range ("Matt-Mark 2" → "Matt.1-Mark.2", while "Matt 2-Mark" → "Matt.2-Mark.16").
• captive_end_digits_strategy: "delete"
  • delete: remove any digits at the end of a sequence that are preceded by spaces and immediately followed by a \w: "Matt 5 1Hi" → "Matt.5". This is better for text extraction.
  • include: keep any digits at the end of a sequence that are preceded by spaces and immediately followed by a \w: "Matt 5 1Hi" → "Matt.5.1". This is better for query parsing.
• end_range_digits_strategy: "verse"
  • verse: treat "Jer 33-11" as "Jer.33.11" (end before start) and "Heb 13-15" as "Heb.13.15" (end range too high).
  • sequence: treat them as sequences ("Jer 33-11" → "Jer.33,Jer.11", "Heb 13-15" → "Heb.13").

Testaments

• testaments: "on"
  • o: include o in the value to look for Old Testament books (Genesis to Malachi in the Protestant canon).
  • n: include n in the value to look for New Testament books (Matthew to Revelation in the Protestant canon).
  • a: include a in the value to look for books in the Apocrypha. Calling include_apocrypha(true) simply removes an a from this value, while calling include_apocrypha(false) removes it. The next values are all combinations of these three primitives.
  • on includes the Old and New Testaments.
  • ona includes the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha.
  • oa includes the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.
  • na includes the New Testament and the Apocrypha.
• ps151_strategy: "c"
  • c: treat references to Psalm 151 (if using the Apocrypha) as a chapter: "Psalm 151:1" → "Ps.151.1"
  • b: treat references to Psalm 151 (if using the Apocrypha) as a book: "Psalm 151:1" → "Ps151.1.1". Be aware that for ranges starting or ending in Psalm 151, you'll get two OSISes, regardless of the sequence_combination_strategy: "Psalms 149-151" → "Ps.149-Ps.150,Ps151.1". Setting this option to b is the only way to correctly parse OSISes that treat Ps151 as a book.

Versification

• versification_system: "default"
  • default: the default ESV-style versification. Also used in AMP and NASB.
  • ceb: use CEB versification, which varies mostly in the Apocrypha.
  • csb: use CSB versification, which differs in two New Testament books.
  • kjv: use KJV versification, with one fewer verse in 3John. Also used in NIV and NKJV.
  • nab: use NABRE versification, which generally follows the Septuagint.
  • nlt: use NLT versification, with one extra verse in Rev. Also used in NCV.
  • nrsv: use NRSV versification.
  • nrsvue: use NRSVUE versification.
  • vulgate: use Vulgate numbering for the Psalms.

Case Sensitivity

• case_sensitive: "none"
  • none: All matches are case-insensitive.
  • books: Book names are case-sensitive. Everything else is still case-insensitive.

Warnings

• warning_level: "none"
  • none: Don't use console.warn.
  • warn: Send console.warn messages when setting an unknown versification_system, getting unknown translation_info(), or redefining an existing translation in add_translations().

Messages

If you're calling parsed_entities() directly, the following keys can appear in messages; they don't always indicate an invalid reference; they may just indicate the chosen parsing strategy.

Start Objects

• start_book_not_defined: true if a c or similar non-book object is lacking a book context. This message only occurs when the object becomes dissociated from the related book, as in Chapters 11-1040 of II Kings. It's highly unusual.
• start_book_not_exist: true if the given book doesn't exist in the translation. A book has to be omitted from the translation's definition to generate this message.
• start_chapter_is_zero: 1 if the requested start chapter is 0.
• start_chapter_not_exist: The value is the last valid chapter in the book.
• start_chapter_not_exist_in_single_chapter_book: 1 if wanting, say, Philemon 2. It is reparsed as a verse (Philemon 1:2).
• start_verse_is_zero: 1 if the requested start verse is 0.
• start_verse_not_exist: The value is the last valid verse in the chapter.

End Objects

• end_book_before_start: true if the end book is before the start book (the order depends on the translation being used). E.g., Exodus-Genesis.
• end_book_not_exist: true if the given book doesn't exist in the translation. A book has to be omitted from the translation's definition to generate this message.
• end_chapter_before_start: true if the end chapter is before the start chapter in the same book.
• end_chapter_is_zero: 1 if the requested end chapter is 0. The 1 indicates the first valid chapter.
• end_chapter_not_exist: The value is the last valid chapter in the book.
• end_chapter_not_exist_in_single_chapter_book: 1 if wanting, say, Philemon 2-3. It is reparsed as a verse (Philemon 1:2-3).
• end_verse_before_start: true if the end verse is before the start verse in the same book and chapter.
• end_verse_is_zero: 1 if the requested end verse is 0. The 1 indicates the first valid verse.
• end_verse_not_exist: The value is the last valid verse in the chapter.

Translation Objects

• translation_invalid: [] if an invalid translation sequence appears. Each item in the array is a translation object.
• translation_unknown: [] if the translation is unknown. If you see this message, a translation exists in bcv_parser.regexps.translations but not in bcv_parser.translations. Each item in the array is a translation object.

Adding New Book Patterns

The .add_books function lets you add new patterns to find books in text. Here's an example; let's say you want to allow "Marco" and "Mrc" to be parsed by the English parser:

const bcv = new bcv_parser(lang);
bcv.parse("Marco 1").osis(); // No result.
bcv.add_books({books: [{ // `books` is always an array of objects.
	osis: ["Mark"], // An array of OSIS book names that you want the pattern to match.
	regexp: /Marco|Mrc/ // The regular expression. You don't need to provide bounding characters.
}]});
bcv.parse("Marco 1").osis(); // Mark.1
bcv.parse("Mrc 1").osis(); // Mark.1

Unlike other functions, this one will throw an error if anything's not quite right with the input.

You probably want to NFC-normalize any patterns before adding them so that they're consistent with built-in patterns.

The books that the parser will find are governed by the testaments setting. If you have it set to o (so you only find books in the Old Testament) but create pattern for a New Testament book, your pattern won't match until you set testaments to contain an n.

Here are the keys you can set in each object in the array:

• osis: This is an array of OSIS book names that you want your pattern to match. Typically you only want to match one, but some abbreviations, like "Ma" in English, can match multiple books. The parser will prefer the first valid one. If you try to parse Ma 28 with the osis: ["Mal", "Matt"], it will pick Matt because Mal doesn't have 28 chapters (assuming you have a bc or bcv passage_existence_strategy).
• regexp: This is the RegExp that will be used to match. Any flags you set are ignored; ultimately, it'll end up with giu flags set. It's possible to write non-performant regular expressions; it's up to you to ensure they meet your needs.
• insert_at: A string to indicate the order you want your pattern parsed in compared to other books.
  • It defaults to start, meaning that your patterns will be parsed before any others.
  • You can also set it to end (to parse it after everything else). For example, maybe you want to be sure that your new /Corinthians/ pattern is always parsed after 1 and 2 Corinthians so that it doesn't eat up valid longer patterns).
  • You can also provide it an OSIS string, like Matt. That will ensure that your pattern is inserted just before the first pattern that matches Matthew. Note that the order of the regular expressions isn't necessarily predictable: generally patterns for 2Cor are parsed before 1Cor, for example. You can also specify a pattern that matches multiple books by comma-separating them: Matt,Mal will match only a pattern that matches both books. In practice, you probably don't want to do that.
• pre_regexp: Normally, the book patterns you provide are bounded by other RegExps to ensure that we don't lift out potential book matches in the middle of words. You can use this key to assign your own RegExp. Importantly, it shouldn't use any capturing groups ((...)). It also should only consist of zero-width assertions (like negative lookbehinds, \b, or ^ anchors). If your pattern gobbles text, it will throw off the parser.
• post_regexp. Similarly, you can provide a pattern for after the book. Here it's also important not to gobble any characters, so you should only use zero-width assertions. If you set either pre_regexp or post_regexp, you probably want to test extensively. Because the RegExps have the u flag, you can use \p classes for bounding. For example, (?=[^\p{L}]) asserts that the next character isn't a letter.

Adding New Translations

The .add_translations function lets you define new translations. Let's say you want to define an "NIV1984" translation for the parser to find in the text you provide. The NIV1984 uses the same versification system as the NIV (2011), which is "kjv" (since the KJV and the NIV have the same number of chapters and verses in each book):

// Here the parser identifies Mark 1 but not the translation.
bcv.parse("Mark 1 (NIV1984)").osis_and_translations(); // ["Mark.1", ""]
bcv.add_translations({
	translations: [{ text: "NIV1984", system: "kjv" }]
});
bcv.parse("Mark 1 (NIV1984)").osis_and_translations(); // [["Mark.1", "NIV1984"]]
// This verse exists in the default versification but not in the NIV1984 or the KJV.
bcv.parse("3 John 15 (NIV1984)").osis_and_translations();  // []

It's also possible to define a custom versification system. The following defines the first and only book in the system to be Matt (but note that any undefined books are added to the end), and it defines Matt to have only one chapter with 10 verses. The value in system should match a key in systems if you're defining a custom one. The osis key lets you define what gets reported back out to you.

bcv.add_translations({
	translations: [{ text: "ONLYMATT", osis: "MATTHEWTRANSLATION", system: "custom1" }],
	systems: {
		custom1: {
			books: ["Matt"],
			chapters: {
				"Matt": [10]
			}
		}
	}
});
bcv.parse("Matt 1:2 ONLYMATT").osis_and_translations(); // [["Matt.1.2", "MATTHEWTRANSLATION"]]

As with add_books(), you can define pre_regexp and post_regexp at the top level of the object (not for individual translations). As in add_books(), the patterns you use should not consume any characters.

This function will also throw errors if something isn't right.

Unicode

If you're dealing with non-ASCII characters, you probably want to NFC-normalize your input before sending it to the parser. All the built-in patterns are normalized with the NFC algorithm. The parser doesn't perform this normalization for you because it can affect the length of your input, which in turn would affect the offsets.

Caveats

The parser is quite aggressive in identifying text as Bible references; if you just hand it raw text, you will probably encounter false positives, where the parser identifies text as Bible references even when it isn't. For example, in the string she is 2 cool, the is 2 is parsed as Isa.2.

The parser spends most of its time doing regular expressions and manipulating strings. If you give it a very long string full of Bible references, it could block your main event loop. Depending on your performance requirements, parsing large numbers of even short strings could saturate your CPU and lead to problems in the rest of your app.

In addition, a number of the tests in the "real-world" section of test/realworld.spec.js have comments describing limitations of the parser. Unfortunately, it's hard to solve them without incorrectly parsing other cases—one person intends Matt 1, 3 to mean Matt.1,Matt.3, while another intends it to mean Matt.1.3.

Tests

One of the hardest parts of building a BCV parser is finding data to test it on to tease out corner cases. The test folder has over 3,700 tests that illustrate the range of input that this parser can handle.

Separate from this repository are four data files that you can use to test your own parser. Derived from Twitter and Facebook mentions of Bible references, the dataset reflects how people really type references in English. It includes 4.7 million unique strings across 180 million total mentions. (For example, the most-popular string, "Philippians 4:13", is mentioned over 1.3 million times.)

1. 10+ mentions in the dataset. 465,000 unique strings, 4 MB. If you're just beginning to develop your own parser and are looking for raw data, start with this file.
2. 3-9 mentions in the dataset. 818,000 unique strings, 7 MB.
3. 2 mentions in the dataset. 743,000 unique strings, 7 MB.
4. 1 mention in the dataset. 2.7 million unique strings, 25 MB. This file contains strings that only appear once in the corpus.

The tests are arranged in three columns:

1. Popularity is the number of times the text appears in the corpus. You can use this column as a way to prioritize how to handle corner cases.
2. Text is the raw text of the reference. Tabs and newline characters ([\t\r\n]) are converted to spaces; otherwise they appear unaltered from their source.
3. OSIS is the OSIS value of the text as parsed by this BCV Parser. If one or more translations appears, it precedes a colon at the start of the string. For example: Matt 5, 7, NIV, ESV has an OSIS value of NIV,ESV:Matt.5,Matt.7. Otherwise, the OSIS consists only of OSIS references separated by commas. You may choose to interpret certain cases differently to suit your needs, but this column gives you a reasonable starting point from which to validate your parser.

This dataset has a few limitations:

1. It's self-selecting in that it only includes content that this BCV parser understands.
2. It doesn't include as many misspellings as you'd expect because the queries used to retrieve the data only use correct spellings. Misspellings that do occur are incidental—they're part of content that otherwise includes a non-misspelled book name.
3. Its coverage of Deuterocanonical books is very limited; as with misspellings, the queries used to retrieve the data don't include books from the Apocrypha.
4. It doesn't include context that could change the interpretation of the string.
5. Sequences interrupted by translation identifiers are separated: the parsing of Matt 1 NIV Matt 2 KJV appears in two separate lines.
6. It's only in English.

OSIS

OSIS is a system for marking up Bibles in XML. The BCV parser only borrows the OSIS system for book abbreviations and references. You can control the OSIS specificity using the osis_compaction_strategy option. I like OSIS references because, programmatically, they're easy to handle.

The parser emits GkEsth for Greek Esther rather than just Esth. It can include Ps151 as part of the Psalms (Ps.151.1)—the default—or as its own book (Ps151.1.1), depending on the ps151_strategy option.

Input	OSIS
John	John or John.1-John.21 or John.1.1-John.21.25
John-Acts	John-Acts or John.1-Acts.28 or John.1.1-Acts.28.31
John 3	John.3 or John.3.1-John.3.36
John 3:16	John.3.16
John 3:16-17	John.3.16-John.3.17
John 3:16-4:1 and 4:2-5a	John.3.16-John.4.1,John.4.2-John.4.5

Program Flow

This section describes the parsing of a typical string:

const bcv = new bcv_parser(lang); // Declare the object
bcv.parse("John 3:16"); // Do the parsing
console.log(bcv.osis()); // "John.3.16"

Matching Potential Passages

The bcv.parse() function accepts a string. It first replaces any reserved characters that we're going to need later in the program without affecting any of the character indices.

Then it runs through all the regexps for Bible books (match_books()). In this case, it matches the John part of the string and replaces it with the characters \x1f0\x1f. The two \x1f characters provide boundaries for the match, and the 0 matches an index in the books array we're using to keep track of the original string and some metadata. (If there were more books, they would be \x1f1\x1f, \x1f2\x1f, etc.) These books aren't necessarily replaced in the order they appear in the string, but rather in the precedence order specified in regexps.books—we want to parse 1 John before John so that program doesn't interpret the John in 1 John as being a separate book. In other words, match longer books first.

Once it has matched all the possible books in the string, we call match_passages() to identify complete passages—we want to be sure to treat strings like John 3:16, 17 as a single sequence. The regexps.escaped_passage used for these matches is fairly complicated. It looks for some unusual cases (chapter 23 of Matthew) first, but it pivots around the escaped book sequence from match_books(): it tries to find numbers and other characters that can comprise a valid sequence after a book (including other books). We know that we'll probably have to trim some of what it finds later; at this point, we want to be as comprehensive as possible.

For each match, we trim some unnecessary parts from the end of it and then run it through the grammar file that identifies the components of the string (in this case, John 3:16 fits the pattern of a bcv, or book-chapter-verse). The grammar uses Peggy, a parsing expression grammar with a DSL that compiles to Javascript. A PEG provides predictable performance, especially for shorter strings like Bible references. The grammar identifies components in the match and, importantly, records the indices of where each component starts and ends in the string. Peggy's built-in extension mechanism provides an easy way to output the necessary data. The tradeoff of using a PEG arrives in the form of increased code size: around half the code in the minified file comes from the auto-generated grammar.

We also look here for a corner case of the format 1-2 Samuel, where the book range precedes the book name. If it exists, we construct an object to use later.

After the regexp has found all the matches in the string (and the grammar has taken a pass at them), we return to parse, which loops through the results, sending each one in turn to the bcv_passage object.

Interpreting Grammar Results

The bcv_passage object is responsible for the bulk of the heavy lifting in interpreting the output of the grammar. Most of its functions correspond to types (such as bcv) returned from the grammar. These functions accept three arguments: a passage that reflects the output from the grammar, an accum that reflects the processing results thus far, and a context that reflects the current processing state—if a function sees a 16 and knows that the context is John.3, it can interpret the 16 as a verse number rather than, say, John.16. These functions don't alter global state and are safe to run any number of times over the content, a situation that can happen if the initial parsing strategy doesn't work out.

In the case of a bcv, the passage object consists of two values: a bc (the book-chapter combination) and a v (the verse number). Since a new book renders any existing context unnecessary, we first get rid of the existing context. We then loop through the possible book values—usually there's only one, but an ambiguous book abbreviation like Ph (Phil or Phlm) can have more than one—to find valid references. For example, given Ph 20, we know that only Philemon fits the bill (Phlm.1.20) since there's no chapter 20 in Philippians. Much of the logic in functions dealing with books revolves around this process of identifying valid passages.

Once we've identified a viable book, we record the position of the match in the original string, set the context for any future processing, and move on. In the case of John 3:16, we're done and head back up to parse.

Ranges

The bcv function is fairly straightforward—the logic doesn't get too convoluted. Much of the processing complexity in the parser arises from dealing with ranges that have errors in them or are ambiguous. The basic principle is that end ranges that go beyond the valid end of a book or a chapter are OK—people are often imprecise when it comes to remembering how many chapters are in a book or verses are in a chapter. Four tricky cases arise fairly often, however.

The first tricky case comes from people who like to use hyphens in ways that don't just indicate ranges. For example, the string Hebrews 13-15 (Hebrews has thirteen chapters) most likely means Hebrews 13:15. In some cases, we can guess that that's the case and correct our interpretation. The algorithm the program uses asks whether the end chapter is too high—and if it is, whether the end chapter could be a valid start verse. If so, it proceeds as though that's the case.

The second tricky case arises from strings like John 10:22-42 vs 27. In this case, the grammar has indicated that 42 vs 27 is a cv, or chapter-verse (in other words, John.10.22-John.42.27). However, when the purported end chapter doesn't exist, it makes more sense to treat it as a sequence: John.10.22-John.10.42,John.10.27.

The third tricky case stems from strings like Psalm 123-24. The grammar output suggests that we should interpret this range as invalid: Ps.123-Ps.24. Instead, we choose to interpret it as Ps.123-Ps.124. This approach can be aggressive at times: does Psalm 15-6 really mean Ps.15-Ps.16?

The fourth tricky case resembles the first one: Jeremiah 33-11 isn't the invalid range Jer.33-Jer.11 but rather the bcv Jer.33.11.

If we still couldn't make sense of the range, then we treat is as a sequence of verses instead of a range: Psalm 120-119 becomes Ps.120,Ps.119.

Translations

Translations are complicated because they propagate backward, whereas passage context propagates forward: Matt 2 (KJV), Eph 6 (NIV) means that the KJV should apply to Matthew 2, while the NIV should apply to Ephesians 6.

In theory, some translations could have different books or chapter/verse counts, so if we've made assumptions up to this point that, say, certain chapters have a specific number of verses, we may need to revisit those assumptions. Therefore, we reprocess everything we've already seen.

Generating Output

With the bcv_passage processing complete, we exit the parse() function; you can now ask for the results in the format that's convenient for you.

All the output functions call parsed_entities(). This function loops through the results from bcv_passage, constructing an array of objects that other functions can draw from. This function ignores entities you're not interested in and adjusts indices to exclude some entities. For example, you may not want the Ex in Hab 2 Ex. (You can control this behavior using the options.) Most of the logic involves getting the indices right in corner cases.

This function also creates OSIS strings and can combine consecutive references into a single range (e.g., John.1,John.2 becomes John.1-John.2).

You're probably not calling this function directly but instead are using osis() or osis_and_indices(), detailed above.

Performance

Performance degrades with the number of passages found in a string. You can generally expect to parse over 100 KB per second.

Alternate Versification Systems

The BCV parser supports several versification systems (described above). The appropriate versification system kicks in if the parsed text explicitly mentions a translation with an alternate versification system, or you can use set_options({"versification_system":"..."}). You can extend the relevant translation_additions.js to add additional ones (though the build process overwrites this file; you may be better off adding them in the data.txt for your language of interest.

You can also add new versification systems and translations at runtime using .add_translations().

Non-English Support

Each file in es/lang provides support for additional languages.

Supported Languages

Most of these languages are in Google Translate.

Prefix	Language
ar	Arabic
bg	Bulgarian
ceb	Cebuano
cs	Czech
cy	Welsh
da	Danish
de	German
el	Greek (mostly ancient)
en	English
es	Spanish
fa	Farsi
fi	Finnish
fr	French
he	Hebrew
hi	Hindi
hr	Croatian
ht	Haitian Creole
hu	Hungarian
id	Indonesian
is	Icelandic
it	Italian
ja	Japanese
jv	Javanese
ko	Korean
la	Latin
mk	Macedonian
mr	Marathi
ne	Nepali
nl	Dutch
no	Norwegian
or	Oriya
pa	Punjabi
pl	Polish
pt	Portuguese
ro	Romanian
ru	Russian
sk	Slovak
so	Somali
sq	Albanian
sr	Serbian
sv	Swedish
sw	Swahili
ta	Tamil
th	Thai
tl	Tagalog
tr	Turkish
uk	Ukrainian
ur	Urdu
vi	Vietnamese
zh	Chinese (both traditional and simplified)

When parsing a language that doesn't use Latin-based numbers (0-9), you probably want to set the non_latin_digits_strategy option to replace.

When using <script>s on the web, be sure to serve them with the utf-8 character set—all files contain raw UTF-8 characters. The safest way to ensure the right character set is to include the charset attribute on the <script> tag:

<script src="bcv_parser.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Cross-Language Support

Two files in esm/lang provide support for identifying translations in multiple languages at one time (e.g., "Matthew 2, Juan 1"). You can use this support if you don't know ahead of time what language someone might be using.

The files are:

1. ascii.js. Only supports characters in the set [\x00-\x7f\u2000-\u206F] (ASCII characters and certain punctuation marks like em-dashes). It runs about 12% slower than en.js, parsing around 140KB per second in the fuzz tester.
2. full.js. Parse book names across all languages. It runs about 30% slower than en.js, parsing around 110KB per second in the fuzz tester.

Some features, such as psalm titles, are still English-only, even in these cross-language files.

Executing bin/add_cross_lang.pl full or bin/add_cross_lang.pl ascii will recompile the needed source files. You can then compile the files as usual using the build instructions.

Compatibility

These files work in any environment that supports ES2022; any browsers released since mid-2021 should support ES2022:

• Chrome 74+
• Safari 14.1+ (14.5+ on iOS)
• Edge 79+
• Firefox 90+
• Node 16+

The js folder contains an older version of this code (2.0.1) and supports much older browsers, back to IE8, Firefox 12, Chrome 19, and Node 0.10. The code in this folder is no longer maintained.

Building

The BCV Parser uses the following projects (none of them is necessary unless you want to edit the source files or run tests) as dev dependencies:

• esbuild to package the files.
• Jasmine 5.5.0 for the testing framework.
• Peggy for the parsing grammar.
• Grex for optimizing generated regular expressions.

Adding a Language

Create a Folder

In src, create a folder named after the ISO 639 code of the desired language. For example: fr.

Create Data Files

Create a data.txt file inside that folder. I recommend copying the existing data.txt from src/template. The research.xlsx file in that folder can help you organize your work; you can copy/paste from that spreadsheet into the data.txt file.

Points to know:

1. Lines that start with # are comments.
2. Lines that start with $ are variables.
   1. $FIRST, $SECOND, $THIRD, and $FOURTH are helpful for reducing redundancy in book names. For example, if you define 1 and I as values for $FIRST, then you can just write $FIRST Samuel and $FIRST Corinthians instead of repeating yourself for each book.
   2. $GOSPEL is helpful to reduce verbosity for names like "The Gospel according to Matthew".
   3. $AB is used by the parser to determine partial verses (like "Genesis 1:1a"). You probably want to avoid overlap with $FF. It's required.
   4. $AND is used by the parser for sequences. For example, in English, you'd define and here, while in Spanish, you'd define y. It's also useful for common expressions like see also. If you don't have a value for this, you can just use &. It's required.
   5. $CHAPTER is used by the parser to explicitly indicate chapters: Genesis 1:1, 5 vs. Genesis 1:1, chapter 5. If you don't have a value for this, I'd just use the English chapter. It's required.
   6. $FF is used by the parser to indicate "and following", which it interprets as "to the end of the chapter" or "to the end of the book," depending on context. An exclamation mark (!) negates the following character or character class. f![a-z]) means an "f" not followed by the characters a-z. This syntax is passed onto the Peggy parser. If you don't have a value for this, I'd use the English ff. It's required.
   7. $NEXT is used in languages where one pattern indicates the immediate next verse (or chapter). In Polish, for example the n![n] pattern indicates a single n, not followed by another n; the nn is used for $FF to indicate an unknown number of ranges. It's optional.
   8. $TITLE is used by the parser for psalm titles (like Psalm 3 title). It's required.
   9. $TRANS defines custom translation names for your language. Each value has up to three components, separated by commas. Let's break down the (fictional) definition NAS,NASB,kjv. The NAS means to track NAS in what you're parsing, and to treat it as a known translation. The NASB means that when you get the value back to your script from the parser, you'll receive NASB instead of NAS. The kjv means to use the KJV versification system for this translation rather than the default. Often you'll omit parts: NAS,,kjv and NAS,NASB (this last one is the actual definition) both work. You should specify at least one translation for your language.
   10. $TO is used by the parser to identify ranges. Typically you want to use words here, but you can also use characters. If you don't have a value, I recommend using - (which treats the hyphen as a range). It's required.
   11. $VERSE is used by the parser to identify the words for verse. For example, Philemon verse 2. It's required.
   12. $COLLAPSE_COMBINING_CHARACTERS is used by the language generator to determine whether to unbundle accents. For example, á gets separated out into [áa]. If you don't want this behavior for your language, set this value to false. You can also handle this scenario on a case-by-case basis using backticks, as described below.
   13. $PRE_BOOK_ALLOWED_CHARACTERS is used by the language generator to identify allowed characters before books. See zh for an example ([^\x1f], which means anything except another book character). In general, you don't need to set this variable.
   14. $UNICODE_BLOCK is used by the language generator to identify appropriate boundary characters. It's required. If you're not sure, I recommend setting it to Latin.
3. Lines that start with an OSIS book name are a tab-separated series of regular expression subsets.
   1. A backtick (```) following an accented character means not to allow the unaccented version of that character.
   2. A ? makes the preceding character optional.
   3. A character class works like a simple RegExp character class: [az] means the characters a and z are allowed. Character ranges probably don't work.
   4. You can use the variables you defined earlier in the file in definitions. If you'd like the build process to create tests for book ranges like 1-3 John, then be sure to define $FIRST, $SECOND, and $THIRD as variables in at least one definition for 1John, 2John, and 3John.
4. Lines that start with = are the order in which to check the regular expressions for books (check for 3 John before John, for example, so that the string 3 John 2 doesn't get parsed as John 2).
5. Lines that start with * are the preferred long and short names for each OSIS (not used here, but potentially used in a Bible application). The third column represents a still-shorter form, and the fourth column represents the form to use when a single Psalm is being looked at. In English, we'd say "Psalms 1-2" but "Psalm 1."

You can also create three other files:

1. translation_additions.js (see en for an example). This file lets you define translations with different book orders or numbers of verses in each chapter. The top-level keys are the versification system (the third component of your $TRANS definition). Each object can have an order object, a chapters object, or both. order is a fully specified canon. It must include all 84 books that this parser understands, or else the parser could break. If your canon doesn't include all 84 books, you can put the unused ones at the end. chapters is an object where each key is the OSIS book identifier, and the value is an array of numbers that represent the number of verses in each chapter. For example, "Gen": [31, 25, ...] indicates that Genesis 1 has 31 verses, and Genesis 2 has 25 verses. You must specify values for all chapters in a book, though the number of chapters can vary depending on the translation. For Ps151, use a Ps151 key; don't create a Ps array with 151 items; the parser will eat the last item.
2. spec_additions.js (see he for an example). This file consists of Jasmine tests that you'd like to run for your language in addition to the standard parsing tests.
3. psalm_cb.js (see en for an example). This file lets you specify how to handle inverted Psalm queries, like 23rd Psalm. If you use the English file as a model, I'd only edit the regexp key; the other keys should remain as they are.

Building the Language

Run either npm run build-language fr (where fr is the ISO code of your language, matching the folder name in src) or sh bin/build_lang.sh fr. It also run tests for that language.

To build a language, you'll need Perl with the JSON package and the dev dependencies. It uses npx to execute some functions.

Improving the build process is a key improvement area for the future.

Running Tests

If you have dev dependencies installed, the easiest way to run all tests is to use npm run test, which takes about a minute. You can also use npx jasmine test/*.spec.* test/lang/*.spec.js.

To run tests just for your language: npx jasmine test/lang/de.spec.js (replacing de with your language, unless your language is German, in which case de will work just fine for you).

There are also html files in test/html for browser testing. Because they use ES Modules, they won't run locally. ESBuild's Serve functionality is your friend here.

Purpose

This is the fourth complete Bible reference parser that I've written. It's how I try out new programming languages: the first one was in PHP (2002), which saw production usage on the ESV Bible website from 2002-2011; the second in Perl (2007), which saw production usage on openbible.info starting in 2007; and the third in Ruby (2009), which never saw production usage because it was way too slow. This parser (at least on Node) is faster than the Perl one and 100 times faster than the Ruby one.

I originally chose Coffeescript out of curiosity—does it make Javascript that much more pleasant to work with? From a programming perspective, the easy loops and array comprehensions alone practically justify its use. From a readability perspective, the code is easier to follow (and come back to months later) than the equivalent Javascript—the tests, in particular, are much easier to follow without all the Javascript punctuation.

However, the world has moved on since 2011, and Typescript is now standard in many workflows. Javascript has also adopted the easier loops, array comprehensions, and coalescing operators that made Coffeescript attractive. I used ChatGPT to take a first pass at rewriting each Coffeescript function into Typescript.

License

The code in this project is licensed under the standard MIT License.

Backlog Items

Here are potential improvements I have in mind for this parser.

1. Make setting an explicit chapter a runtime variable ("; " could effectively become "; chapter "). Making this happen in a flexible way involves editing the Peggy parser output. Target release: 3.1.
2. Allow setting translations to be case-insensitive, not just books. Target release: 3.1.
3. Change the build process to be less finicky. The Perl scripts are brittle and hard to debug. I'd like to remove nearly all the compile-time logic. Target release: 3.2.
4. Improve type usage. This is my first experience with Typescript, and I'm confident a lot can be improved.

Changelog

January 11, 2025 (3.0.0). Full release here and on npm.

January 9, 2025 (3.0.0-beta2).

• Renamed /es to /esm to avoid confusion with "es" language.
• Renamed .cjs files in /cjs to .js and added package.json in relevant subfolders to default to treating them as CommonJS files.
• Changed the logic for non_latin_digits_strategy: "replace". It now runs after book parsing instead of before. This change reduces the number of book names created in certain languages, avoids unexpected behavior while reading strings, and makes upcoming changes to the build process easier to implement. Because it's technically a backwards-incompatible change (although in reality there probably aren't practical implications to it), I wanted to get it in as part of the 3.0 release.

January 5, 2025 (3.0-beta). Renamed add_passage_patterns() to add_books() to better reflect what it does and to match add_translations(). The function signature also changed. It's a breaking change from 3.0-alpha. Added add_translations() to allow adding new translations at runtime.

January 1, 2025 (3.0-alpha). This release represents a major refactoring from Coffeescript into Typescript, so I want it to settle a bit before publishing it to npm.

The existing js folder wasn't touched, and the public API (as described above) hasn't changed in any backwards-incompatible way for CommonJS files. ES modules require a language argument to be passed to the constructor (see usage above).

• Replaced Coffeescript with Typescript. Notably, ES2022 (Node 16 and circa-2021 web browsers) is now the minimum supported version for new files (though the js folder still contains files generated for 2.0.1). It should be possible to use esbuild --target=es2018 if you need something older, but this target isn't explicitly supported. Any older targets won't work. Backwards compatibility for older targets isn't a design goal for this release.
• Added an es folder (changed to esm in 3.0.0-beta2) to support import-style modules usage rather than CommonJS require modules. This change also separates the language data from the core parser; you now send language data to the parser object when you construct it.
• Added a cjs folder with .cjs files (changed to .js in 3.0.0-beta2) to support browsers and legacy require usage.
• Added an add_passage_patterns() (renamed to add_books() in 3.0-beta) function to let you add new book patterns at run time instead of at compile time.
• Added the testaments option.
• Added a warn_level option to show warnings in some cases.
• Added support for newer English translations like CSB and NRSVUE. Thanks to dwo0 for one correction here.
• Added support for Farsi (thanks to ralaska) and Indonesian.
• Fixed a crashing bug when calling .parsed_entities() multiple times consecutively in specific cases.
• Switched from PEG.js to Peggy and from regexgen to grex since both are maintained.
• Updated Jasmine to the latest version (5.5.0).
• Added esbuild to build different module styles.

May 4, 2017 (2.0.1). Fixed a bug in calculating positions for non-English Psalm titles. Switched to regexgen from frak for more deterministic regular expressions to reduce diff sizes. Added support for Turkish (thanks to alerque).

May 1, 2016 (2.0.0). Added additional Vulgate versification beyond Psalms. Because these changes are technically backwards-incompatible, the major version number is incrementing, but in practice the changes are minor.

November 1, 2015 (1.0.0). Added punctuation_strategy option to replace the "eu"-style files that were previously necessary for this functionality. Added single_chapter_1_strategy option to allow parsing of "Jude 1" as Jude.1.1 rather than Jude.1. Fixed crashing bug related to dissociated chapter/book ranges. Upgraded to the latest versions of pegjs and Coffeescript. Added npm compatibility. Added support for a "next verse" syntax, which is used in Polish ("n" for next verse, compared to "nn" for "and following"). The parsing grammar includes this support only when the $NEXT variable is set in the language's data.txt file (only Polish for now). Thanks to nirski for identifying this limitation.

May 4, 2015 (0.10.0). Hand-tuned some of the PEG.js output to improve overall performance by around 50% in most languages.

March 16, 2015 (0.9.0). Added parse_with_context() to let you supply a context for a given string. Added Welsh. Fixed some Somali book names. Added missing punctuation from abbreviations in some languages. Reduced size of "eu" files by omitting needless duplicate code. Improved testing code coverage and added a fuzz tester, which uncovered several crashing bugs.

November 3, 2014 (0.8.0). Fixed two bugs related to range rewriting. Updated frak to the latest development version. Added quite a few more languages, bringing the total to 46.

May 2, 2014 (0.7.0). Added the passage_existence_strategy option to relax how much validation the parser should do when given a possibly invalid reference. The extensive tests written for this feature uncovered a few other bugs. Added the book_range_strategy option to specify how to handle books when they appear in a range. Added translation_info(). Fixed bug when changing versification systems several times and improved support for changing versification systems that rely on a different book order from the default. Updated PEG.js to 0.8.0. Added support for Arabic, Bulgarian, Russian, Thai, and Vietnamese.

November 8, 2013 (0.6.0). Recast English as just another language that uses the same build process as all the other languages. Fixed bug with parentheses in sequences. Made specs runnable using jasmine-node. Optimized generated regular expressions for speed using Frak. Added support for German, Greek, Italian, and Latin.

May 1, 2013 (0.5.0). Added option to allow case-sensitive book-name matching. Supported parsing Ps151 as a book rather than a chapter for more-complete OSIS coverage. Added Japanese, Korean, and Chinese book names. Added an additional 90,000 real-world strings, sharing actual counts rather than orders of magnitude.

December 30, 2012 (0.4.0). Per request, added compile tools and Hebrew support.

November 20, 2012 (0.3.0). Improved support for parentheses. Added some alternate versification systems. Added French support. Removed docs folder because it was getting unwieldy; the source itself remains commented. Increased the number of real-world strings from 200,000 to 370,000.

May 16, 2012 (0.2.0). Added basic Spanish support. Fixed multiple capital-letter sequences. Upgraded PEG.js and Coffeescript to the latest versions. Deprecated support for IE6 and 7.

November 18, 2011 (0.1.0). First commit.