ninja-bear 🥷🐻

Have you ever had to deal with several components, written in different languages, in which each had its own files to define your project's constants, like REST endpoints, valid parameters, valid values, ... and every time something changed, all those constants needed to be updated too, to keep things working?

ninja-bear - All your constants in one place. Configure your constants in YAML, generate for all required languages.

Concept

All constants are defined in a YAML file. This file specifies the constant-names, their values, for which languages to generate source files for and many other options (if required). It is then passed to ninja-bear which takes care of generating the corresponding source files. To achieve a high amount of flexibility, a plugin-based approach is used in which each plugin (language, distributor) is an independend Python module, to let developers define their own languages/distributors without the need to modify ninja-bear directly.

Installation

pip install ninja-bear

Example

Lets have a look at a simple example to see what ninja-bear can do for you.

The example YAML file contains a property named greeting with the value "Hello World". Constant-files shall be generated for TypeScript, Python and C (using the corresponding plugins). In case of C, the value shall be changed to "Hello Mars" and the file shall be distributed to Git using the ninja-bear-distributor-git plugin.

For detailed configuration information, please check test-config.yaml. All possible values are described there.

Input (readme-config.yaml)

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This section defines languages and properties which are usually the settings
# that you'll use the most.
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
languages:
  - language: typescript
    property_naming: screaming-snake
    export: esm

  - language: python
    file_naming: snake
    property_naming: screaming-snake

  - language: c
    file_naming: snake
    property_naming: pascal

    transformers:
      - mars-transformer

    distributors:
      - git-distributor

properties:
  - type: string
    name: greeting
    value: Hello World

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This sections defines the available transformers and distributors. They are
# are used if property values need to be transformed before they get written
# or if specific language constants shall be distributed. To use a transformer
# and/or a distributor, its alias needs to be used in the language section
# (refer to c-example).
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
transformers:
  - transformer: |
      value = 'Hello Mars'
    as: mars-transformer

distributors:
  - distributor: git
    as: git-distributor

Execute ninja-bear

# -d is used to distribute the C-file to Git.
ninja-bear -c readme-config.yaml -d

Output (readme-config.ts)

export const ReadmeConfig = {
    GREETING: 'Hello World',
} as const;

Output (readme_config.py)

from dataclasses import dataclass

@dataclass(frozen=True)
class ReadmeConfig:
    GREETING = 'Hello World'

Output (readme_config.h)

#ifndef README_CONFIG_H
#define README_CONFIG_H

const struct {
    char Greeting[11];
} ReadmeConfig = {
    "Hello Mars",
};

#endif /* README_CONFIG_H */

Usage

Commandline

ninja-bear -c test-config.yaml -o generated

Script

from ninja_bear import Orchestrator

# Create Orchestrator instance from file.
orchestrator = Orchestrator.read_config('test-config.yaml')

# Write constants to 'generated' directory.
orchestrator.write('generated')

# Distribute constants (if required).
orchestrator.distribute()

Create a plugin

To create a new plugin, clone the repository, run the create_plugin.py script and select the corresponding plugin type. The script guides you through the required steps and creates a new folder (e.g. ninja-bear-language-examplescript), which contains all necessary files to get started. All files that require some implementation contain the comment "TODO: Implement". The method comments contain information about what to implement. To install and test the plugin, scripts can be found in the helpers directory.

Example list of available plugins

A short list of available plugins for ninja-bear. There are probably more. For a better overview please refer to pypi.org.

Languages

• ninja-bear-language-c
• ninja-bear-language-go
• ninja-bear-language-java
• ninja-bear-language-javascript
• ninja-bear-language-python
• ninja-bear-language-shell
• ninja-bear-language-typescript

Distributors

• ninja-bear-language-fs
• ninja-bear-language-git