Skype 5 for macs (and i hear this is true for other OSes too) uses a sqlite database under the hood to store usage metadata, including chat and call history. These are some DataMapper classes wrapping the database tables, allowing one to easily and quickly access usage information.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU TRY TO COPY OR MOVE AN SQLITE DB WHILE IT IS BEING ACCESSED. Please quit Skype make a copy of your database (on Macs it's in ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/[your skype username]/main.db ) to access.

If this gets gemified this'll be even easier, but for now:

$:.unshift(File.join(path_to_this_repo, 'lib'))
require 'dm-skype'
repo_key = :default
db_uri = 'sqlite:///Users/knowtheory/data/chat/skype_main.db'
Skype.setup(repo_key, db_uri)
DataMapper.finalize

If you wish to do custom DataMapper thingies you can also require just the models themselves (please note that you will need to set the naming convention on the repository):

$:.unshift(File.join(path_to_this_repo, 'lib'))
require 'dm-core'

# custom stuff
db_uri = 'sqlite:///Users/knowtheory/data/chat/skype_main.db'
DataMapper.setup(:skype, db_uri) # use a separate :skype repository
DataMapper.repository(:skype).adapter.resource_naming_convention = DataMapper::NamingConventions::Resource::UnderscoredAndPluralizedWithoutModule

require 'dm-skype/models'
DataMapper.finalize