Txtar

A Ruby implementation of txtar Go package.

I found txtar package while working on my Go projects and liked the idea. Txtar archives helped me to package test fixtures in a clean and a human-friendly way.

Recently tinkering on a Ruby project, I decided to use txtar files to organize samples of input/output data in tests. As no Ruby gem implements the format, I decided to make one :)

The format spec copied from txtar Go package source code:

Txtar format

A txtar archive is zero or more comment lines and then a sequence of file entries. Each file entry begins with a file marker line of the form "-- FILENAME --" and is followed by zero or more file content lines making up the file data. The comment or file content ends at the next file marker line. The file marker line must begin with the three-byte sequence "-- " and end with the three-byte sequence " --", but the enclosed file name can be surrounding by additional white space, all of which is stripped.

If the txtar file is missing a trailing newline on the final line, parsers should consider a final newline to be present anyway.

There are no possible syntax errors in a txtar archive.

The installation procedure is standard as for any other Ruby gem.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'txtar'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install txtar

As mentioned above, personally I use txtar files to organize test fixtures. See docs/examples.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/soulim/txtar. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License. The original idea and the spec of txtar archives belongs to The Go Authors.

Copyright (c) 2020 Alexander Sulim