Snip

Add code snippets to your code directly from the web (or your local filesystem).

Useful to maintain a repo of snippets as I do in https://github.com/whoan/snippets/.

Installation

Dependencies

• curl to download snippets

Bash

# download script and place it whenever you want
curl --fail "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whoan/snip/master/snip.sh" > snip.sh

# now place this handy function in your shell rc file
snip() {
  # source snip on demand to avoid slowing down your session startup. you're welcome :)
  if ! declare -f __snip > /dev/null; then
    local path_to_snip="/full/path/to/snip.sh"  # HEY! CHANGE THIS PLEASE!!!
    if ! [ -f "$path_to_snip" ]; then
      echo "$path_to_snip was not found" >&2
      return 1
    fi
    source "$path_to_snip"
  fi
  __snip "$@"
}
# start a new shell session to take changes

Usage

• Add snip("<url|local_path>") (a.k.a. the snip line) anywhere in your code (usually as a comment) and the retrieved content will be placed after that line.
• Prefix any command with snip (eg: snip bash script.sh) and the snip lines (if any) will be replaced with the content retrieved from the url provided.

Adding your snip line as a comment avoids your linter to complain about syntax (it works the same).

Optional Parameters

• You can provide the -f/--force flag to force downloading the content regardless of it being present in the cache (~/.cache/snip). The cache will be updated with new content.

Settings

You can set the following in ~/.config/snip/settings.ini:

• base_url: Specify a url to shorten the snip line in your code.

  Example:

  $ cat ~/.config/snip/settings.ini
  

  base_url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whoan/snippets/master/cpp/
  

  Now, you can write this snip line in your code:

  //snip("print.hpp")

  Instead of this:

  //snip("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whoan/snippets/master/cpp/print.hpp")

Features

• It supports any type of text file
• If a snippet has a snippet, those are replaced recursively too.
• Once a snippet is downloaded, it is cached to fasten next uses of snip, unless yo provide -f to force redownloading.
• For C/C++ files, after PR #16, you will see proper line numbers and filenames on compilation errors. You will even know if the error is inside a snippet (see Issue #15 as an example).

Examples

It works with any type of file. Feel free to add examples through PRs.

C++

Let's compile main.cpp prefixed with snip:

$ cat examples/main.cpp

//snip("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whoan/snip/master/examples/snippet.hpp")
int main() {
  say_hello();
  return 0;
}

$ snip g++ examples/main.cpp && ./a.out
> Hello World

If you set base_url in your settings, you can also shorten the reference to the snippet like this:

//snip("snippet.hpp")  // snip will download $base_url/snippet.hpp

And if you want to reference a snippet in your file system, just provide the path to the file:

//snip("/home/you/snippet.hpp") // full path
//snip("./snippet.hpp")         // relative path
//snip("~/snippet.hpp")         // you can even reference your home path with ~

Bash

$ cat examples/main.sh

#snip("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whoan/snip/master/examples/snippet.sh")
say_hello

$ snip bash examples/main.sh
> Hello World

Python

$ cat examples/main.py

#snip("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whoan/snip/master/examples/snippet.py")
say_hello()

$ snip python examples/main.py
> Hello World

Docker

$ cat examples/Dockerfile

FROM alpine
#snip("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whoan/snip/master/examples/snippet.dockerfile")
CMD sh say_hello.sh

$ snip docker build -q -t snip-docker -f examples/Dockerfile . && docker run snip-docker
> Hello World

TODO

• Add cache to avoid downloading same code over again (Thanks @sapgan and @danstewart)
• Allow setting base_url in a file to shorten snip line

Final notes

I created this script to reuse code with ease. It is not production ready... unless you know what you are doing.

License

MIT