LIWC-22-cli Wrapper

Auto-open

If LIWC-22 is installed, call it from Python through the Liwc22 class. The LIWC-22 desktop application (or its license server) must be running when you call the CLI:

import pandas as pd

liwc = liwca.Liwc22(encoding="utf-8", precision=4)
df = pd.DataFrame({"doc_id": ["a", "b"], "text": ["...", "..."]})
out_path = liwc.wc(
    input=df,  # DataFrame or path
    output="results.csv",
    id_columns=["doc_id"],
)
results = pd.read_csv(out_path, index_col=0)

Different modes

The input argument accepts either a filepath or a pandas.DataFrame - DataFrames are written to a temp CSV, fed to liwc-22-cli, and cleaned up afterwards. Each mode method returns the output path on success (or None when dry_run=True). For mode wc the output file is reshaped in place via wc_output_schema: Row ID is renamed back to the source column name when id_columns is given, the constant Segment column is dropped (or promoted to a second index level when segmentation is used), and the column axis is named Category.

Cross-cutting options (encoding, CSV formatting, URL handling, precision, execution-control flags) are set once at construction. Each of the seven mode methods - wc, freq, mem, context, arc, ct, lsm - then takes only mode-specific kwargs.

Arguments

Arguments are Pythonic: booleans for yes/no flags, iterables of strings for comma-list args, and column references as either 0-based int or column names (str, resolved against the input’s header row):

liwc = liwca.Liwc22(count_urls=True, encoding="utf-8")
liwc.wc(
    input="data.csv",
    output="results.csv",
    include_categories=["anger", "joy"],
)
liwc.lsm(
    input="chat.csv",
    output="lsm.csv",
    text_column="text",
    person_column="speaker",
    level="both",
    pairwise=False,
)

Pass auto_open=True to let liwca start and stop LIWC-22 automatically. Use as a context manager to amortize the app-launch cost across multiple calls:

with liwca.Liwc22(auto_open=True) as liwc:
    liwc.wc(input="data.csv", output="wc.csv")
    liwc.freq(input="data.csv", output="freq.csv", ngram=2)

See the API reference for the full argument lists, and the LIWC CLI documentation and Python CLI example for more details.