Add youtube-transcript

1 files changed, 109 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/youtube-transcript/yt_transcript.py b/youtube-transcript/yt_transcript.py
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..3215003
--- /dev/null
+++ b/youtube-transcript/yt_transcript.py
@@ -0,0 +1,109 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""Extract clean plain-text transcripts from YouTube videos using yt-dlp."""
+
+import argparse
+from html import unescape
+import re
+import subprocess
+import sys
+import tempfile
+from pathlib import Path
+
+
+def download_subs(url: str, lang: str = "en") -> str:
+    """Download auto-generated subtitles and return the VTT content."""
+    with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmp:
+        out = Path(tmp) / "sub"
+        subprocess.run(
+            [
+                "yt-dlp",
+                "--write-auto-sub",
+                "--write-sub",
+                "--skip-download",
+                "--sub-lang", lang,
+                "-o", str(out),
+                url,
+            ],
+            check=True,
+            capture_output=True,
+            text=True,
+        )
+
+        # prefer manual subs over auto-generated
+        for suffix in [f".{lang}.vtt", f".{lang}.vtt"]:
+            vtt = Path(f"{out}{suffix}")
+            if vtt.exists():
+                return vtt.read_text(encoding="utf-8")
+
+        # fallback: grab whatever vtt file was written
+        vtts = list(Path(tmp).glob("*.vtt"))
+        if vtts:
+            return vtts[0].read_text(encoding="utf-8")
+
+        raise FileNotFoundError("No subtitles found. Try --list-subs on the video.")
+
+
+def parse_vtt(vtt_text: str) -> str:
+    """Parse VTT content into clean deduplicated plain text."""
+    lines: list[str] = []
+    prev = ""
+
+    for line in vtt_text.splitlines():
+        # skip VTT header, metadata, timestamps, blank lines
+        if re.match(r"^(WEBVTT|Kind:|Language:|\s*$)", line):
+            continue
+        if "-->" in line:
+            continue
+
+        # strip HTML-style tags (<c>, <b>, etc.) and formatting
+        clean = re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", "", line)
+        # decode HTML entities (&gt; &amp; &lt; etc.)
+        clean = unescape(clean)
+        # normalize whitespace
+        clean = re.sub(r"\s+", " ", clean).strip()
+
+        if not clean or clean == prev:
+            continue
+
+        # handle overlapping cues: skip if current line is a suffix of prev
+        # or prev is a suffix of current (common in auto-subs)
+        if prev and (prev.endswith(clean) or clean.startswith(prev)):
+            # replace prev with the longer version
+            if clean.startswith(prev) and clean != prev:
+                lines[-1] = clean
+                prev = clean
+            continue
+
+        lines.append(clean)
+        prev = clean
+
+    return "\n".join(lines)
+
+
+def main():
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Extract YouTube transcript as plain text")
+    parser.add_argument("url", help="YouTube video URL")
+    parser.add_argument("-l", "--lang", default="en", help="Subtitle language code (default: en)")
+    parser.add_argument("-o", "--output", help="Output file (default: stdout)")
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+
+    try:
+        vtt = download_subs(args.url, args.lang)
+    except subprocess.CalledProcessError as e:
+        print(f"yt-dlp error: {e.stderr}", file=sys.stderr)
+        sys.exit(1)
+    except FileNotFoundError as e:
+        print(str(e), file=sys.stderr)
+        sys.exit(1)
+
+    transcript = parse_vtt(vtt)
+
+    if args.output:
+        Path(args.output).write_text(transcript, encoding="utf-8")
+        print(f"Saved to {args.output}", file=sys.stderr)
+    else:
+        print(transcript)
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()