generator

Generator

Language agnostic project bootstrapping with an emphasis on simplicity.

Installation

[sudo] npm install -g generator

Once installed, you should load the default templates:

generate --setup

Usage

In order to bootstrap a project using one of the default templates you simply run generate and specifiy a template and project name. For example, let's create a new Node.js module called kittycannon:

generate --template npm --name kittycannon

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Default Templates

Generator comes with a few templates to get you started. While they are usable as-is, the whole point of Generator is make the creation of custom templates as simple as possible.

• npm NPM module template
• arduino Arduino project template

How Templates Work

Templates are simply directories with any combination of files and sub-directories found within them. To create a new template simply create a new directory within your ~/.generator path or copy one of the default templates and modify it. Upon use, Generator will walk the template looking for any instances of __somelowercasevariable__ and prompt for a value. For example, a template including this:

/**
 * __description__
 *
 * @package __name__
 * @author __author__ <__email__>
 */

Will prompt:

description: Rainbow catsplosion.
author: Nyan Cat
email: [e-mail]

Which will generate:

/**
 * Rainbow catsplosion.
 *
 * @package myAwesomeProject
 * @author Nyan Cat <[e-mail]>
 */

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Post Processing

By default, Generator will look for a makefile and (if found) will run make generator after all other template processing has been completed. This is particularly handy for dealing with template dependencies that may change over time (like git repositories or even NPM modules). For example:

generator:
    npm install
 
.PHONY: generator

Or... heck, let's go crazy nuts and automate setting up our git repo:

generator:
    git init
    git remote add origin https://github.com/__github__/__name__
    npm install
 
.PHONY: generator

---

Testing

npm test

Notes

• C, C++, and PHP often use the __SOMETHING__ pattern for macros. For this reason, Generator will ignore any variable instances that are specified in caps. This works fine for C and C++ users, but given that such macros in PHP are case insensitive, PHP users should keep this limitation in mind while designing templates.
• "Good coders code. Great reuse." quote shamelessly stolen from Peteris Krumins' blog (which you should read).