Pyplater

Pyplater is a flexible automated file-templating program written in Python. Specify the template file to use and any required/optional arguments and Pyplater will copy the template to a new file, 'fill in' parts with information from arguments and the environment, then open it in your $EDITOR for you.

Syntax

Pyplater's templating syntax is somewhat similar to Liquid's, but note that both percentage signs '%' are on the outside.

Replacements are applied line by line. Variables are replaced first, then shell commands with their output.

Filename = First line

The first line of a file defines the file name for the new file. You can use any and all templating syntax in this line. Relative and absolute filenames are allowed.

Remember that you never pass a filename argument to Pyplater: the template filename or first argument may well be used for the filename, but that's up to the template file itself.

Variable replacement

e.g. %{HOME||/home/user}%

Tries to match a word enclosed by %{ and }% (e.g. %{word}%) and replaces it the match with the value of info[word]. If the matched word is not a key in the info dictionary, it is replaced with a placeholder string (currently '<placeholder>'). If the word starts with an exclamation mark e.g. %{!word}% then the variable is required -- if it isn't found, Pyplater exits.

Note: Requiring '$@' (i.e. all arguments) works as you would expect: given no arguments, it fails, but with one or more arguments it is fine.

The info directory is filled with the command line arguments (discouting argument '0', the name of the invoked program), certain environment variables and some other variables used internally but made available for flexibility purposes (like the full name of the template file at info["template"]). You can find and edit the full list of environment variables copied over in the program file -- currently it includes basic ones like $HOME and $PWD.

You can set a 'fallback' value to use if the variable isn't found by adding a separator || and the string to fall back on, e.g. %{1||No argument 1 supplied}%. If the variable is required, it will use any provided fallback before failing.

More on command line arguments: they begin from 1, and that is the first template argument you provide, not the template to use! (That's stored in info["template"].)

Shell command replacement

e.g. %(wc -w <<< "%{1}%")%

Trid to match a string enclosed by %( and )% (e.g. %(echo superfluous)%) and replaces the match with the output of the string run as a shell command.

Because variables are replaced first, you can put them inside command replacements. It'll work just the same. The example given would count the words in the first argument.

You can get pretty creative with these. The filename for a file made from the journal template is/originally was:

%{HOME}%/journal/%(date "+%Y-%m-%d")%-%(ezstring "%{@||New entry}%")%.md

where ezstring is a program which makes a filesystem-friendly filename from a string.

Executable templates

If a template file has its executable bit set, the new file will be made executable as well.