putconf

putconf is a nice way to install and synchronize config files.

To use putconf, you provide it a directory or git repository containing the config files you want to install, and it puts them in your home folder (or somewhere else of your choosing).

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Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• License

Installation

putconf provides a script, so it is recommended to install it with pipx:

pipx install putconf

If installed via pip, you will have to run putconf with python -m putconf.

Usage

To use putconf, you need to provide a source, which may be either a local directory or a git repository. For the most part, putconf will simply copy the files in the specified directory into the target directory, which defaults to the current value of ${HOME}.

putconf can either install config files from a source or update the source with config files pulled from another location. The latter is referred to as synchronization.

Example:

# install from a local directory (to $HOME)
putconf Documents/config-files
# install from git (to $HOME)
putconf ssh://git@github.com:jepugs/my-home-folder

# update all config files in a local source with files (from $HOME)
putconf -S Documents/config-files
# update/add specific config files to a local source (from $HOME)
putconf -S Documents/config-files .bashrc .config/emacs/init.el

Run putconf -h to see additional options.

Source Directory Layout

Files in the top level of the source beginning with dots are normally ignored, but they may contain a toplevel directory named ".dotfiles". Files in this directory are treated as if they reside in the toplevel themselves, but with a dot character . prepended to their names. E.g. .dotfiles/bashrc will be installed with the name .bashrc.

Synchronization operations are aware of how the dotfiles folder should work.

Known Deficiencies

• putconf does not process .gitignore files
• putconf scans over directories manually in python, so if you accidentally give it a ton of files, it may take a long time
  • in particular, if your config directory contains another git repository (like with submodules), then the whole .git directory in the subrepository will be copied
  • this also goes for synchronization, since specifying a directory in the target will cause that whole directory to be scanned
• files are checked for existence before any modifications are made, but the program may exit after an incomplete install/sync operation if it encounters a permission error

Things It Would Be Nice to Add

This is not a promise, but here are a couple of things I may or may not add in the future:

• Unix-style globs in the FILES list
• basic facilities to generate config files from scripts in the source
• caching git repositories so we don't have to clone the whole thing each time
• fixes for the above mentioned deficiencies

License

putconf is distributed under the terms of the GPL license.