Gennifer

This is a gem for generating files or projects using recipes and templates. Everything is done by a simple command 'gen'

To install the gem:

$ gem install gennifer

You need some recipes to use gennifer. Before writing your own recipe, you are highly recommended to install the default settings and recipes. To put default settings and recipes in the folder ~/.gennifer

$ gen install

The gem is customizable but it also comes with a bunch of default functionality out of the box.

To generate a latex article project (with the tex file, the bib file, the figure folder, and .gitignore file):

$ gen project_name article

To generate a latex beamer project instead:

$ gen project_name beamer

Or just a simple tex file:

$ gen file_name.tex tex

To generate a sublime-project file in the current folder to make the current folder a sublime text project:

$ jem project_name sublime

To generate a ruby file with the name testing.rb :

$ gen testing.rb ruby

To generate a python file with the name testing.py :

$ gen testing.py python

In fact gennifer would recognize the extension name so that

$ gen testing.rb
$ gen testing.py

also work as expected.

To see the help text:

$ gen help

If you have tried gen project_name article, you probably notice that the file contain names and information of the author. The default name is Gennifer Lynn Connelly and there are default values for other information too. You can change the values in the file ~/.gennifer/settings.rb. The system settings are those settings which will alter the behaviour of the program. And the users Settings are variables which is available in the recipes.

All the recipes are stored in the folder ~/.gennifer/recipes. Each files contains a recipe which can be used with the command gen. Each recipe should be in the following format.

class ArticleRecipe
  def recipe
    create @full_path
    create (@full_path + "/#{@full_name}.tex"), 'latex_article.tex'
    erb (@full_path + "/#{@full_name}.tex")
    create (@full_path + "/reference.bib"), 'reference.bib'
    create (@full_path + "/.gitignore"), 'gitignore_latex'
    create (@full_path + '/figures')
    create (@full_path + "/figures/sample-figure.pdf"), 'sample-figure.pdf'
  end
end

You may write the whole recipe using ruby (like using mkdir, cp, mv in FileUtils). However, there are several convenient helper methods you can use in the recipe. For example, create will create a new directory in the target location if only the location is specified. And it will copy a file/directory from the resources folder if a resources location is specified in the second argument.

A bunch of variables are available in the recipe. For example, if you run gen myarticle article from the location ~/Document/projects/, then

@current_dir   # ~/Document/projects/
@resources     # ~/.gennifer/resources/
@full_name     # myarticle
@base_name     # myarticle
@ext_name      #
@recipe        # ArticleRecipe
@target_dir    # ~/Document/projects/
@full_path     # ~/Document/projects/myarticle/

If you run gen ../myfile.rb from the location ~/Document/projects/, then

@current_dir   # ~/Document/projects/
@resources     # ~/.gennifer/resources/
@full_name     # myfile.rb
@base_name     # myfile
@ext_name      # .rb
@recipe        # RbRecipe
@target_dir    # ~/Document/
@full_path     # ~/Document/myfile.rb

The class name should be in capitalized camelcase and ended with the word Recipe. For example, the command gen project_name article will invoke the recipe ArticleRecipe.

The file name and file structure inside the folder ~/.gennifer/recipes are not important. You can use the folder structure to organize the recipes.

When the recipe is not specifed, gennifer will use the file name to try to identify the recipe. For example,

$ gen cat.rb

Gennifer will try the recipes in the following order: CatRbRecipe, RbRecipe, CatRecipe. Among the default recipes, the RbRecipe would be used. A more complicated example would be

$ gen application.html.erb

Gennifer will try the recipes in the following order: ApplicationHtmlErbRecipe, HtmlErbRecipe, ErbRecipe, HtmlRecipe, ApplicationRecipe.

If everything tried and still there is no recipe found, Gennifer will use the DefaultRecipe. This recipe is specified in the file ~/.gennifer/recipes/default.rb

Among all the recipes, there are three of them which are special. The AfterRecipe, BeforeRecipe, and DefaultRecipe. As mentioned before, the DefaultRecipe is the recipe which is called when no suitable recipe is found for a certain file/project name. The BeforeRecipe is the recipe which is run before any recipes and the AfterRecipe is run after any recipes.

You can supply extra arugments to the gen command to customize the behaviour of each recipe. All extra arguments are available in the recipe. For example,

$ gen testing.rb exe

will generate a testing.rb file and make the file executable. This is specified in the first line of the AfterRecipe (executable @full_path if check_argv('exe')). The part check_argv('exe') check whether exe is included in the arguments and it can be used to check for other extra arguments.

You can use the method erb in recipe (see ArticleRecipe). This will use erb to process the file before it is generated. Gennifer uses erb to fill in information like name and address using the information specified in the settings.rb.

You can invoke another recipe by using invoke(TargetRecipe) in the recipe file. Notice that the program wont stop if you recursively invoke the same recipe from itself.

This gem is not released for public use yet.