add-dist-header

Add Dist Header

<img src=https://centerkey.com/graphics/center-key-logo.svg align=right width=200 alt=logo>

Prepend a one-line header comment (with license notice) to distribution files

add-dist-header uses the name, homepage, and license from your project's package.json file to create a header comment and prepend it to a build file.

<img src=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/center-key/add-dist-header/main/screenshot.png width=800 alt=screenshot>

Example header comment for a .js file:

//! my-app v0.3.7 ~~ https://github.com/my-org/my-app ~~ MIT License

Example header comment for a .css file:

/*! my-app v0.3.7 ~~ https://github.com/my-org/my-app ~~ MIT License */

Automatically prepending headers to distribution files is particularly handy when your build tools are configured to remove comments (such as if "removeComments": true in set in tsconfig.json). For a real-world example, see the files in the dist folder at w3c-html-validator

A) Setup

Install package for node:

$ npm install --save-dev add-dist-header

B) Usage

1. npm scripts

Run dist-header from the "scripts" section of your package.json file.

The first parameter is the source file (defaults to "build/*"). The second parameter is the output folder (defaults to "dist").

Example package.json script:

   "scripts": {
      "add-headers": "dist-header build dist"
   },

Try out the first script with the command: npm run make-dist

2. Global

You can install add-dist-header globally and then run it anywhere directly from the terminal.

Example terminal commands:

$ npm install --global add-dist-header
$ dist-header "build" "dist"
[17:13:50] dist-header build/my-app.d.ts --> dist/my-app.d.ts (413.11 KB)
[17:13:51] dist-header build/my-app.js --> dist/my-app.js (1,569.70 KB)

The parameters are optional:

$ dist-header  #same as above since "build/*" "dist" are the default parameter values
[17:13:50] dist-header build/my-app.d.ts --> dist/my-app.d.ts (413.11 KB)
[17:13:51] dist-header build/my-app.js --> dist/my-app.js (1,569.70 KB)
$ dist-header "meta/config.js"  #creates "dist/config.js" prepended with header
[17:15:03] dist-header meta/config.js --> dist/config.js (3.91 KB)

3. CLI Flags

Command-line flags:

Flag	Description	Values	Default
--delimiter	Characters separating the parts of the header comment.	string	~~
--replace	Delete the original first line comment (if not marked ! important).	true, false	true
--version	Substitute occurrences of ~~~version~~~ with the package.json version number.	true, false	true

Version Number Substitution:

In addition to prepending the header comment, add-dist-header also replaces all occurrences of ~~~version~~~ in each file with the version number found in package.json. This enables inserting the current package version number into your distribution files.

The substitution feature is disabled by setting --version flag to false:

Examples:

• dist-header temp dist --delimiter=🔥   Use "🔥" as the separator instead of "~~".
• dist-header --version=false build dist   Add headers but do not subsitute the version number.

C) Application Code

Even though add-dist-header is primarily intended for build scripts, the package can easily be used in ESM and TypeScript projects.

Example:

import { addDistHeader } from 'add-dist-header';

const options = {
   filename:  'build/rocket.js',
   dist:      'dist',
   delimiter: '🚀🚀🚀',
   };
const result = addDistHeader.prepend(options);
console.log('The size of the new file is:', result.size);

See the TypeScript Declarations at the top of add-dist-header.ts for documentation.

---

Build Tools

• 🎋 add-dist-header:  Prepend a one-line header comment (with license notice) to distribution files
• 📄 copy-file-util:  Copy or rename a file (CLI tool designed for use in npm scripts)
• 📂 copy-folder-cli:  Recursively copy a folder (CLI tool designed for use in npm scripts)
• 🚦 w3c-html-validator:  Check the markup validity of HTML files using the W3C validator

Feel free to submit questions at:
github.com/center-key/add-dist-header/issues

MIT License