# spans.manual merge tokens using db-out

**URL:** <https://support.prodi.gy/t/spans-manual-merge-tokens-using-db-out/6121>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Tags:** usage\
**Created:** [November 15, 2022, 5:23pm UTC](https://support.prodi.gy/t/spans-manual-merge-tokens-using-db-out/6121 "2022-11-15T17:23:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ryanwesslen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/support.prodi.gy/ryanwesslen/32/2969_2.png) [@ryanwesslen](https://support.prodi.gy/u/ryanwesslen)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://support.prodi.gy/t/spans-manual-merge-tokens-using-db-out/6121/2 "2022-11-16T16:17:16Z")

</div>

Hi @cheyanneb!

> [@cheyanneb](#):
>
> I am wondering if there is a way to alter the output when using `db-out` and `spans.manual` to show the string associated with the span/label ("I live in Idaho" = SUPERFLUOUS\_INFO, "openh" = TYPO, "chicken" = STT\_ERROR) as well as the tokenized output.

So you're just looking to add the raw span text to each span dict?

Thinking you could just add this to `db-out`:

```python
for eg in examples:
    for span in eg["spans"]:
          span['text'] = eg['text'][span['start']:span['end']]

```

If you create a new flag argument (`add_span_text`) to turn this on or off (set off by default), you could run this

```python
from pathlib import Path
from typing import Optional, Union

import srsly
from prodigy.components.db import connect
from prodigy.util import msg

def db_out(
    set_id: str,
    out_dir: Optional[Union[str, Path]] = None,
    answer: str = None,
    flagged_only: bool = False,
    dry: bool = False,
    add_span_text: bool = False,
) -> None:
    """
    Export annotations from the database. Files will be exported in
    Prodigy's JSONL format.
    """
    DB = connect()
    if set_id not in DB:
        msg.fail(f"Can't find '{set_id}' in database {DB.db_name}", exits=1)
    examples = DB.get_dataset_examples(set_id)
    if flagged_only:
        examples = [eg for eg in examples if eg.get("flagged")]
    if answer:
        examples = [eg for eg in examples if eg.get("answer") == answer]

    # add span text
    if add_span_text:
        for eg in examples:
            for span in eg["spans"]:
                span['text'] = eg['text'][span['start']:span['end']]

    if out_dir is None:
        for eg in examples:
            print(srsly.json_dumps(eg))
    else:
        out_dir = Path(out_dir)
        if not out_dir.exists():
            out_dir.mkdir()
        out_file = out_dir / f"{set_id}.jsonl"
        if not dry:
            srsly.write_jsonl(out_file, examples)
        msg.good(
            f"Exported {len(examples)} annotations from '{set_id}' in database {DB.db_name}",
            out_file.resolve(),
        )

```

Does this work?

---

_[View the full topic](https://support.prodi.gy/t/spans-manual-merge-tokens-using-db-out/6121)._