stamp-lang v1.7.0

Stamp

Stamp is an alternative to zip files for sharing a small collection of folders and text files.

A Stamp Program is an easily readable plain text program that when executed creates the files and folders listed.

Stamp Programs can also prompt the user for input and use that input throughout the created files and folders.

Frequently programmers have templates that they start new projects with. Those templates can be turned into Stamp programs.

The Problem

The web is full of project tutorials like this one that ask their readers to go through a series of steps to create a particular folder and file structure for a new project.

The current options for this situation are:

The Recipe Method - explain each step

• Downside: If your basic project layout requires 10 files, that's 10 separate steps the reader has to do just to get started.
• Downside: The reader might make an error during one of those steps and lose even more time.
• Downside: Putting such steps in a narrative and updating that narrative if things change is time consuming as an author

The Zip Method - zip the template directory

• Downside: zip files are opaque and a user has no visibility into what they are creating
• Downside: everytime the template changes, author has to rezip and reupload the folder
• Downside: once unzipped, user has to manually change names to match the name of their project

The Custom Utility Method - implement a custom command line program that generates new projects

• Downside: No visibility into what is getting created
• Downside: If the template changes, now author needs to get users to install the new template program
• Downside: Now you have a whole new complicated program to write and maintain

*The GitHub method - create a repo for your template and have people git clone it

• Downside: no way of doing variable replacement post-clone
• Downside: no plain text way of distributing the template

exampleFile.stamp

#! /usr/local/bin/node --use_strict /usr/local/bin/tree
folder myProject
file myProject/index.js
 data
  console.log("Hello world")
file myProject/readme.md
 data
  # My Readme

Using Stamp

npm install treeprogram
npm install stamp-lang
# todo: add automatic way to tell tree cli where stamp lang is
./exampleFile.stamp

exampleWithPrompt.stamp

#! /usr/local/bin/node --use_strict /usr/local/bin/tree
prompt PROJECTNAME any Enter a name for your project
folder PROJECTNAME
file PROJECTNAME/index.js
 data
  console.log("Hello world")
file PROJECTNAME/readme.md
 data
  # PROJECTNAME

Similar Projects

• Wikipedia list of archive formats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archive_formats)
• ptar (https://github.com/jtvaughan/ptar) - full featured, but difference is the file output is a custom format (not a Tree Language)
• shar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shar) - old school method that has the major security flaw of potentially running any shell command
• dar (http://dar.linux.free.fr/)