Lepidoptera /ˌlɛpɪˈdɒptərə/

1. an order of insects that comprises the butterflies and moths. They have four large scale-covered wings that bear distinctive markings, and larvae that are caterpillars. ORIGIN modern Latin (plural), from Greek lepis, lepid- ‘scale’ + pteron ‘wing.’

2. A life-enhancing code generator for everyday use.

Lepidoptera is a simple and easy to extend code generator for common every day projects.
Technically, Lepidoptera is a wrapper for rubigen which allows setting up code templates for arbitrary projects.

Lepidopteras code generators are structured in generator groups. A generators group is just a container for multiple generators, where as a generator is also called a generator type.

For the time being, Lepidoptera has code generators for the following project types (more to come):

• jquery generators:
  • jquery plugin
• heroku generators:
  • static pages
  • a sinatra application

$ sudo gem install lepidoptera

As lep (/ˈlɛp/) is a short for lepidoptera, this gem will install an executable lep

For aesthetic reason, you may also set a synonym alias butterfly in your .bashrc file:

alias butterfly='lep $1'

$ lep [options] <generator-group> <generator-type> <project-name>

with the following options:

-q, --quiet              Suppress status output.
-n, --new                Create a new code generator stub in ~/.lepidoptera.
-g, --git                Create a git repository after code generation.
-h, --help               Print generator's options and usage.

Get a list of all local code generator groups:

$ lep

Get a list of all code generators for a given generator group:

$ lep <generator-group>

Since lepidoptera is based on Nic Williams Ruby generator framework rubigen, it is very simple to add new own private code generators.

Your own private code generators must reside in a folder ~/.lepidoptera.

A new generator must satisfy the following code structure:

.lepidoptera
└─ <generator-group>_generators
   └─ <generator-type>
      ├─ INFO
      ├─ <generator-type>_generator.rb
      └─ templates
         ├─ ...
         └─ ...

whereas every code generator type must contain the following files:

• an optional INFO file containing some additional project info to be displayed after the generation.
• a required generator file <generator-type>_generator.rb which contains the generation rules.
• a required templates folder templates which may contain multiple ERB templates for the code to be generated.
  These ERB templates may contain variables as placeholders for the following information:
  • <%= name %>: Name of the project.
  • <%= author %>: Author of the project (OS Username).

An easier way to create a new code generator is to automatically generate the above code generator stub into ~/.lepidoptera.

To create a new code generator stub, use the --new option and provide a generator group and a generator type:

$ lep -n <generator-group> <generator-type>

If the generator group does not exist already, a group folder <generator-group>_generators will be created.

The following code generators are currently embedded within this project:

get List of all jquery generators:

$ lep jquery

generate code for a jquery plugin:

$ lep jquery plugin <plugin-name>

get List of all heroku generators:

$ lep heroku

generate code for a static page on heroku:

$ lep heroku static <page-name>

generate code for a sinatra application on heroku:

$ lep heroku sinatra <app-name>

Copyright 2010 Thomas Duerr (me@thomd.net)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.