Converting TeX tokens into characters

[Jonathan Fine]

I'm sort of wishing to convert TeX tokens into characters.

We can assume the standard (i.e. plain) category codes.
And that the characters are to be written to a file.

This proceess to take place outside of TeX.
Say in a Python program.

Think of a pretty-printer.
* Read the TeX in as tokens.
* Write the TeX out as characters.

My present interest is in the writer part.

And I'd very much prefer to have human-editable output.

So the writer should have methods for
* Writing a string (not containing control sequences).
* Writing a control sequence (or control symbol).

And, like humans, it should also have a line length limit.

Does anyone know of such a writer?  Or something close?

Or any projects that could use such a writer?


-- 
Jonathan