CodeWriter

CodeWriter is a fluent Node library that can be used to generate code blocks. It is typically used by code generation tools to simplify the task of building the generated code.

CodeWriter is similar to concepts like StringBuilder's or StringWriter's in other languages. Instead of using string concatenation to build the generated code, CodeWriter adds support for code-specific concepts like indentation and language-specific comments.

Installation

npm install --save-dev codewriter

Usage

JavaScript

const CodeWriter = require('codewriter');
 
const options = { indentSize: 4 };
const writer = new CodeWriter(options);
// Use CodeWriter methods to build the code
const code = writer.toCode();

Typescript

CodeWriter ships with a Typescript definition file, which provides strong-typing and compile-time support.

import { CodeWriter, CodeWriterOptions } from 'codewriter';
 
const options: CodeWriterOptions = { indentSize: 4 };
const writer = new CodeWriter(options);
// Use CodeWriter methods to build the code
const code: string = writer.toCode();

Options

CodeWriter allows some options to be specified in the constructor to customize how the code is generated.

Options reference

Sample options for generating JavaScript code

Through the OptionsLibrary class, CodeWriter also provides predefined options for certain common languages and language families.

Examples

Generate empty C# console program

API reference

JSDoc Documentation

You can view the source code comments directly from GitHub.

If you are using Typescript, you can install the package locally to get code completion support from supported IDE's and editors.

Building the code

# Clone repo from GitHub 
git clone https://github.com/JeevanJames/codewriter.git .
 
# Install dependencies 
npm install
 
# Build code 
npm run build
 
# Continuously watch for code changes and build 
npm run watch
 
# Lint code 
npm run lint
 
# The codebase has a test-harness directory that contains an index.ts file. 
# You can update this file to quickly test code against the framework. 
# To run the test-harness, run the following command: 
npm run test-harness