A script that dumps convoluted XML log files from MSN Messenger to readable plaintext.

msnlog.py

"""
Simple script I whipped up to dump MSN Messenger logs in XML to a readable 
plaintext format. It's not very robust, nor am I sure which versions of MSN
Messenger it's compatible or incompatible with; I just had a specific 
conversation I wanted to read, and this was the vehicle to that end.

By David Warde-Farley -- user AT cs dot toronto dot edu (user = dwf)

Updated for Python 3.6 by Kyle Zhou (also former CS student at UofT)
 
Redistributable under the terms of the 3-clause BSD license 
(see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php for details)
"""

import sys
from xml.dom.minidom import parse

if len(sys.argv) != 2:
	print("usage:", sys.argv[0], "<inputfile>", file=sys.stderr)
	sys.exit(1)

doml = parse(sys.argv[1])
for message in doml.getElementsByTagName("Message"):
	sentDateTime = message.getAttribute("DateTime")
	fromNode = message.getElementsByTagName("From")[0]
	userNode = fromNode.getElementsByTagName("User")[0]
	name = userNode.getAttribute("FriendlyName") 
	msg = message.getElementsByTagName("Text")[0].firstChild.nodeValue
	print(f"[{sentDateTime}] {name} says: {msg}")