[Zope-dev] zc.buildout template recipes: concerns with [z3c|collective].recipe.template and other issues

[Wichert Akkerman]

Hi Gary,

Previously Gary Poster wrote:
> Thanks Uli, Wichert, and Hanno for working out the legal bits!  And  
> thanks to Martijn and Martin for the other replies.
> 
> On Friday I had moved to z3c.recipe.filetemplate, for the reasons I  
> had described then.  Philipp said I could run with that package.   
> However, I'd prefer to work with a more active project.  If there's  
> quick agreement on my additions to the collective recipe, and I'm  
> given commit access, I'll switch.  I don't have time for a bikeshed  
> discussion though, so if it descends much into that I'll stick with  
> extending Philipp's recipe for now, and maybe switch over later when  
> things settle down.

Commit access to the collective is very liberal and generally arranged
within 24 hours. Uli has both commit and pypi access for the package and
has already done a lot of work on it. Your contributions are very
welcome as well!

> If I built on collective.recipe.template, I'd make the following  
> changes.
> 
> REQUIRED
> 
> - verify that the BSD licensing rules are followed (headers, license  
> inclusion, copyright statement, etc.), and fix if not.  I'd prefer if  
> a foundation (e.g., the Plone Foundation) had the copyright.  (TBH,  
> I'm more comfortable with the Zope Foundation repository because the  
> rules for copyright assignment are clearer AIUI, even if they are  
> breached sometimes, as was this case here.  But this isn't critical  
> for my usage or contribution.)

The BSD license has very little restrictions. It certainly does not
require licens statementsin every source file or so. Personally I find
those to be clutter. If there is a missing license file that should be
fixed.

> - Add the ability to specify "eggs" and "extra-paths" the way you can  
> for scripts.  These supply the values for three predefined options  
> (available to the template).  If "paths" are the non-zip paths, and  
> "all_paths" are all paths, then the options woud be defined roughly as  
> given here:
> 
>      os-paths: (os.pathsep).join(paths)
>      string-paths: ', '.join(repr(p) for p in all_paths)
>      space-paths: ' '.join(paths)

I can see that being useful.

> - I have a directory of *.in files that will need to be processed,  
> with shared options, and put in another directory.  Therefore, I'd  
> like to be able to just specify the input directory and optionally the  
> output directory. globs, for filters, might be a nice-to-have.  I came  
> up with a spelling for all this that appealed to me for Philipp's  
> package (which has a constraint of "I only use *.in inputs, and always  
> strip ".in" for the output).  WIth my variant of his spelling, I could  
> do everything I wanted with a line like
> 
>      files = *
>      source-directory = templates
> 
> Then in ``templates`` you would arrange the directory structure you  
> wanted, and make sure that your template files end with ".in".
> 
> I don't have a spelling I like as much for the "input" "output"  
> pattern of the collective recipe.  I'd be OK with "input" and "output"  
> being able to take multiple files:
> 
>      input = templates/etc/foo.in
>                   templates/etc/bar.in
>      output = etc/foo
>                      etc/bar
> 
> That seems like it rocks the boat least for collective.recipe.template

+1

> 
> NICE-TO-HAVE
> 
> Unless I discover I need this, these are just ideas that I might do on  
> hobby time.
> 
> - Extend/override other buildout sections.  Here's an example, with  
> Philipp's package.  Consider the following buildout::
> 
>      >>> write(sample_buildout, 'buildout.cfg',
>      ... """
>      ... [buildout]
>      ... parts = message
>      ...
>      ... [template_defaults]
>      ... mygreeting = Hi
>      ... myaudience = World
>      ...
>      ... [message]
>      ... recipe = z3c.recipe.filetemplate
>      ... files = helloworld.txt
>      ... extends = template_defaults
>      ...
>      ... myaudience = everybody
>      ... """)
> 
> The "message" section now has values extended from the  
> "template_defaults"
> section, and overwritten locally.  A template of
> ``${mygreeting}, ${myaudience}!`` would thus result in ``Hi, everybody! 
> ``.

This feels more like a feature for buildout: I can see this being useful
for other recipes as well.

> - Define option values in Python.  This would have the os and sys  
> modules in the namespace, and would also have the buildout variables,  
> and would have the paths and all_paths from the ``eggs`` section above  
> so you could manipulate them as desired.
> 
> interpreted-options = path-separator=os.pathsep
>                                        example-paths=' '.join('-t%s' %  
> p for p in paths)
> 
> That would put ``path-separator`` and ``example-paths`` in the  
> recipe's options.

Again, this sounds more like a buildout extension. I've missed the
option to do shell escapes in buildout as well.

Wichert.

-- 
Wichert Akkerman <wichert at wiggy.net>    It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/                   It is hard to make things simple.