Text Template Creator Written In POSIX Shell

create-template, or ct for short, is text template creator written in POSIX shell. It allows users to quickly create files that are based on specific templates.

For instance, ./ct.sh main.c default lib1 lib2 extension will create a main.c file which has the templates default, lib1, lib2, extension loaded in order. As an example, in this scenario default could contain #include guards for standard libraries while lib1 and lib2 could contain #include guards for external libraries, and extension could contain code to initialize these libraries. This is only an example, users can incorporate templates into their projects however they wish.

Usage

./ct.sh [-g|--generate] [-n|--no-edit] [-m|--make-executable]
[-q|--quiet] [-s|--no-messages] [-h|--help] [-v|--version] FILE [TEMPLATE]

In order to get started right away, copy my personal configuration files to your local configuration directory: cp -r hamza_ct_config ~/.config/ct. Now run ./ct.sh -h or ./ct.sh --help to see what templates are on the system. The following templates will be displayed:

c: stdlib main 
java: driver class interface 
sh: default

Apply those templates to a file. ./ct.sh main.c stdlib main will create a file main.c and place the given standard library and main function templates into it in the given order. It is also possible to use template indices instead of the template names. For instance, ./ct.sh main.c stdlib main is equivilant to ./ct.sh main.c 0 1. The user is free and encouraged to use the templates however they wish. ./ct.sh main.c 1 0 1 1 0 1 is a prefectly valid way to load templates into main.c. Please try the examples out to better understand what occurs when the previous commands are executed.

Entering invalid template indeces or names simply produces a non-fatal warning message such as

Template INDEX is not a valid template index. Skipping.

or

Template NAME is not a valid template name. Skipping.

where INDEX and NAME are passed template index and name values.

The passed invalid template indeces or names do not affect the file. For instance running ./ct.sh main.c 0 300 main asdfgh will apply the valid templates 0 and main in the given order, however it will also produce the following warning messages:

Template 300 is not a valid template index. Skipping.
Template asdfgh is not a valid template name. Skipping.

Also if no template indeces or names are passed, such as with ./ct.sh main.c, the default template belonging to template index 0 is loaded into the file. Finally, by default ct.sh is not allowed to overwrite files. Overwriting will produce the following fatal message:

File FILE exists. Refusing to overwrite. Exitting

where FILE is the file name passed to ct.sh.

Configuration and Creating Templates

This program encourages the user to configure it in whichever way they please to do so. By default ~/.config/ct is the configuration directory, ~/.config/ct/.ct.conf is the configuration file, and ~/.config/ct/.ct.info is the template information file. These can be changed easily by modifying the source under the # Configuration Data section in ct.sh.

Please follow the these steps to add your own templates to your local system:

1. Open up ~/.config/ct/.ct.conf in your editor of choice and enter the following line:

LANGUAGE:EXTENSION:TEMPLATE1:TEMPLATE2:TEMPLATE3...

where LANGUAGE is the name of the programming language the template will belong to, EXTENSION is the file extension of the given language, TEMPLATE1 is the name of the first (default) template, TEMPLATE2 is the name of the second template, and so on ...

Here's an example from my personal configuration file:

# C: standard library and main function
c:c:stdlib:main

# Java: driver class, implementation class, and interface
java:java:driver:class:interface

# POSIX sh: production environment template
sh:sh:default

There is no limit on the number of templates that can be used. Comments (indicated by #) and empty lines are allowed. However, no field regardless of whether it is the field of LANGUAGE, EXTENSION, or TEMPLATE... can have any whitespace or a colon (:) in it.

2. Run ./ct.sh -g or ./ct.sh --generate to generate the necessary directories for the languages and files for the templates.

3. (Optional) Run tree -a ~/.config/ct and cat ~/.config/ct/.ct.info to better understand what files are created and what templates are now available to the system. After step 2, ./ct.sh --help will display the contents of ~/.config/ct/.ct.info in order to remind the user what languages and templates are ready to use.

4. Finally modify your template file which can be found under ~/.config/ct/LANGUAGE/TEMPLATE where LANGUAGE is the name of the language that the template belongs to and TEMPLATE is the name of the template. Any modifications made to file will apear when applying the template to a new file to work on.

$file is a special string that can be added to template files in order for the $file string in the result file to be searched and replaced with the class or file name. Please skim the contents of the files under hamza_ct_config/java/ and then create templates of java files such as ./ct.sh MyTesterClass.java driver to better understand the role $file plays.

Options and Features

• -n or --no-edit can be passed in order for ct.sh not to open the file for editing once the templates are loaded into the file. By default, $EDITOR, or vim if $EDITOR is empty, is used as the text editor to edit the created file. This can be found and configured under the section # Configuration Data.
• -m or --make-executable can be passed in order for ct.sh to make the file executable once the templates are loaded into the file. The file permissions chmod uses to make the file executable can be found and configured under the section # Configuration Data.
• -q or --quiet can be passed in order for ct.sh not to display any warning messages. This flag does not affect error messages.
• -s or --no-messages can be passed in order for ct.sh not to display any error messages. This flag does not affect warning messages.
• -h or --help displays the help menu.
• -v or --version displays version information.

The order of the passed options makes no difference. ct.sh currently does not support stacking up short options. Please use ./ct.sh file.extension -s -q -n -m instead of ./ct.sh file.extension -sqnm.

LICENSE and AUTHOR

• create-template is free/libre software. This program is released under the GPLv3 license, which you can find in the file LICENSE.txt.

• create-template and its documentation is written entirely by Hamza Kerem Mumcu. Version 1.1 was released June 21 2021. You can reach me at hamzamumcu@protonmail.com.

TODO

All contributions are welcome.

1. Add an append mode. Templates should be able to get applied to already existing files, perhaps with a --append flag.
2. Add multiple file extension support. For instance, C header files should be recognized as a C file. This what it could look like in the configuration file: c:c,h:TEMPLATE... where c and h are file extensions.