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Shudd3r/Skeletons

Template engine for package skeletons

Feels like you're repeating yourself every time you start a new project?\ This package might help you automate some stuff!

Skeleton packages are used to maintain consistent structure of document (LICENSE, README etc.) & dev environment files (tool configs, workflows, scripts) across multiple packages & projects. This library allows building skeleton package scripts capable of:

• Generating file structure for deployed package & local dev environment from skeleton files with built-in placeholder replacements or customized template processing scripts
• Verifying synchronization of existing project with chosen template as a part of Continuous Integration process
• Synchronizing mismatched & missing files in existing project built with prepared skeleton script and its template files
• Updating template placeholder values used in existing package files

Basic Usage

Before diving into details you can learn some basics about skeleton scripts by browsing files (or playing with to some extent) embedded skeleton package example.

Neither applications nor libraries will use this package directly, but as a command line tool of the skeleton package they were built with (dev dependency). To avoid conflicts it is released as a standalone package that doesn't use any production dependencies, and php version compatibility is the only limitation.

Skeleton package

Here's a list of main steps to create and use skeleton package - following sections will cover template & script files in more details:

• Install this library as a dependency of your skeleton package using Composer command:

• Create template directory with your skeleton template files

• Add CLI executable script file and "bin" directive in composer.json pointing to that file:

• Publish skeleton package and require it as a dev dependency in your projects
• Use skeleton as their desired file structure through CLI commands

Executable script file

Entire script that uses this library might look like attached example-skeleton file.

Scripting features:

• Template placeholders are chosen by skeleton creators.
• Each placeholder is assigned to Replacement abstraction that manages user input, validation and resolving placeholder's (default) value.
• Replacement may also provide subtypes for defined placeholder (e.g. escaped slashes for {namespace}).
• GenericReplacement for simple replacements and fluent builder interface for easier instantiation.
• Placeholders for {original.content} with optional default mockup value.
• Possibility to customize template handling for individual files through Template abstraction.
• Synchronization that allows regenerating missing & divergent files.
• Safe file operations - overwritten files are copied into backup directory.
• Filename extension directives that allow:
  • including (deactivating) files that could affect deployed skeleton files (e.g. .gitignore),
  • handling "local" files, that are not (or cannot be) part of published package,
  • using initial "mockup" files that can be removed or developed without breaking skeleton synchronization,
• Directories without specified files required by skeleton are managed by .gitkeep dummy files.

Setup steps:

• Instantiate input arguments and application:

• Add Replacement definitions for placeholders used in templates:

  Simple replacement definitions don't need to be implemented - GenericReplacement can be used:

  It can also be built using fluent builder invoked with build() method:

• Setup custom Templates\Template instantiation for selected template files^*:

  ^{*Template that defines dynamic keys for MergedJsonTemplate (in case of composer.json it would usually be namespace placeholder) requires different merging algorithm for updates. If template doesn't use dynamic keys, its third (boolean flag) parameter is not required.}

• Run application with InputArgs:

Command line usage

Available <command> values:

• init: generates file structure from skeleton template (with backup on overwrite)
• check: verifies project synchronization with used skeleton
• update: changes current placeholder values (synchronized package required)
• sync: generates missing & mismatched skeleton files (with backup on overwrite)
• help: displays help similar to this section

Application <options>:

• -i, --interactive: allows providing placeholder values for init or update command via interactive shell. When no <argument>=<value> is provided interactive mode is implicitly switched on.
• -l, --local: may be used to include files not deployed to remote repository if skeleton defines them (like git hooks or IDE settings). This option may be used for all file operations - initialization, validation, synchronization and updates. See .sk_local template filename suffix in Directive suffixes.

Available <argument> names depend on placeholders configured in application. Currently, built-in placeholders can receive their values from following arguments:

• package: package name (Packagist)
• repo: remote (GitHub) repository name
• desc: package description
• ns: project's main namespace

Values that contain spaces should be surrounded with double quotes. For example following command for example-skeleton script would update package description:

When both --interactive option and placeholder arguments are provided, valid argument values will become default for empty input.

Template files

Project file structure controlled by skeleton will reflect template directory, and placeholders within its files will be replaced. Check out template directory in example skeleton package

Directive suffixes

Behavior of some template files can be modified by adding a suffix to their names:

• .sk_init - files generated at initialization only, not verified. Usually used for example files.
• .sk_local - untracked, local dev environment files. Generated & updated, but not verified on remote environments.
• .sk_file - deactivates files processed by remote workflows. For example .gitignore file cannot be safely deployed as a part of skeleton, because it might exclude some of its files.
• .sk_dir - similar to .sk_file in context of directories. For example .git directory cannot be deployed. Such directory is expected to contain .sk_local or .sk_init files.

Empty directories

Empty directories cannot be committed, but by convention .gitkeep dummy files may be used to enforce directory structure when no files are specified. Dummy files should be removed when other files in required directory are present.

Skeleton script will create essential or remove redundant .gitkeep files with init, update & sync command, and package with redundant or missing dummy files will be marked as invalid by check operation. Contents of these files are not validated and placeholders are not replaced.

In example template src and tests directories are required, but on initialization src/Example.php and tests/ExampleTest.php files will be created and .gitkeep file will be ignored, but when these files are removed (and no other file is added) .gitkeep will become necessary and sync command should be used to keep package compliant with the template.

Placeholders

Placeholder consists of its name surrounded by curly braces. Script defines what kind of replacement given placeholder represents. For example, application configured the following way will replace {namespace.src} with given namespace value:

Placeholder subtypes

Replacement, beside direct value may define its subtypes. For example SrcNamespace replacement defined above will also replace {namespace.src.esc} with escaped backslashes used in composer.json file, and PackageName has {*.composer} subtype that gives normalized packagist package name in lowercase.

Original Content placeholder

{original.content} is a special built-in placeholder that represents places where project specific text might appear. It's useful especially for README files, where skeleton cannot dictate its entire content. Template can also define initial/default value for it, and single template file can use this placeholder multiple times. For example README file that is expected to contain concrete sections might be defined as follows:

Custom Template processing

Some files that change dynamically throughout project lifetime cannot be handled in a simple, text expanding way like, for example,README.md. This is where custom templates might be used.

This package comes with Merged Json Template as the only one file-based template.

Merged Json Template

This custom template can handle normalization & merging of generated .json template files with corresponding files existing in developed package like composer.json. In short, skeleton file can define order of keys, but doesn't have to specify their values. It will also ensure same order of keys in repeating (list) structures. Adding key in the wrong position will require synchronization which will merge & normalize skeleton with existing file (and create backup copy). For details check out MergedJsonTemplateTest file.