cookieslicer

Library Package: cookieslicer

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The cookieslicer project was born out of a simple need: to have a templating system that we could apply multiple times as our knowledge grew. With multiple open source projects being maintained, it was becoming difficult to remember which versions of which files were "the best". While the cookiecutter project is a good first step to solving these problems, we felt it needed something in front of it to help control the templating.

The cookieslicer application adds three files to a project that assist it in maintaining good templates. The source directory is the location of the template to be applied, and contains a cookieslicer.json file that gives addition instructions on how to handle certain situations that arise when re-applying a template. The output directory is the location that the template is applied to. This directory contains a cookiecutter-config.yaml that is applied to the template in the source directory using cookiecutter. This directory also contains a cookieslicer.json file with configuration information for the cookieslicer application.

The rest of the process is (mostly) simple. Cookieslicer uses the cookiecutter-config.yaml file and the source directory to generate a completed template in a temporary directory. With that template including the source directory's cookieslicer.json file, cookieslicer then checks to see if the source directory's template version is the same as the output directory's template version, quickly exitting if they are the same. Otherwise, the source directory's cookieslicer.json file tells Cookieslicer how to alter files in the output directory.

Outside of a normal file copy, there are three different modes in which this happens. The once mode instructs Cookieslicer to only copy a file if it does not exist in the output directory. The attention mode instructs Cookieslicer to copy the file if it is different and to place it on an attention list. This list is relayed to the end-user at the end of the templating. Finally, the remove mode instructs Cookieslicer to remove a file with a specific path from the output directory. While we are not sure if this is a complete list of actions to take, we feel that it was a good enough list to start with.

Requirements

This project required Python 3.8 or later to function.

Installation

pip install cookieslicer

How To Use This Package

NOTE: This project is under development. More to come in the following weeks.

Examples

For concrete examples that show the power of this library package, please consult the Examples Document. If you come up with a normal example of how to use our package that we have missed, or come up with a novel example of how to use our package, please file an issue using the process below and let us know. From our experience, one example can often paint a picture of how to use our project that is difficult to explain clearly with just words.

Issues and Future Plans

If you would like to report an issue with the library or the documentation, please file an issue using GitHub. Please remember to fill in as much information as possible including a good, repeatable pattern for reproducing the issue. Do not overflow us with too much information, but provide us with enough information to make the problem evident to us.

If you would like to us to implement a feature that you believe is important, please file an issue using GitHub that includes what you want to add, why you want to add it, and why it is important to you, and how you think it will help others. We truly want to listen to what you see as a good feature, so please do not be upset if we say "no" or "let me think about it".

Please note that the issue you file will usually be the start of a conversation, so be ready for more questions. If you have any Python developer skills, please mention that as well. The conversations about "hey, can you..." is a lot different than "if I do... can I add it to the project?".

When Did Things Change?

The changelog for this project is maintained at this location.

Still Have Questions?

If you still have questions, please consult our Frequently Asked Questions document.

Instructions For Contributing

Developer notes on various topics are kept in the the Developer Notes document.

If you attempting to contribute something to this project, please follow the steps outlined in the CONTRIBUTING.md file.