Programmatically convert SVG shapes to paths (lineto, moveto)

Question

I have an SVG file coming from Inkscape, Illustrator, or any other application. I want to convert the shapes to lineto, moveto, curveto format.

What I want is something like:

./Appname svgfile outfilewithpath

I will give the SVG file as an argument, then my application will convert the object into the respective paths.

Answer 1

Inkscape has a command-line interface. Use the Inkscape man page along with the verb source for reference:

The ObjectToPath verb converts an object to a path:

inkscape filename.svg --select=myobject --verb=ObjectToPath --export-plain-svg=filename_to_path.svg

The export-text-to-path argument converts text nodes to paths:

inkscape filename.svg --export-eps=filename.eps --export-text-to-path

These are related questions on how to run InkScape from Perl, Ruby, PHP or Python:

• Using the Inkscape shell from perl
• Run inkscape in PHP
• Calling Inkscape in Python
• Inkscape Merge Ruby Gem

Answer 2

This is what finally worked for me:

inkscape -f filename.svg --verb EditSelectAll --verb SelectionUnGroup --verb EditSelectAll --verb ObjectToPath --verb FileSave --verb FileQuit

It takes about 9 seconds to run and briefly opens the inkscape gui, which becomes the active application, so it's not ideal, but it's the only answer I could find that actually works.