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BIGTOP(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation BIGTOP(1)
NAME
bigtop - the parser/generater for the bigtop langauge
SYNOPSIS
For regnerating pieces of an existing app:
bigtop [options] file.bigtop all
Or, for brand new apps:
bigtop --new AppName 'ascii_art'
Or, to augment an existing app:
bigtop --add app.bigtop 'ascii_art'
Or, to bring a postgres 8 databases into bigtop:
bigtop -n AppName -s Pg8Live 'dbi:Pg:dbname=yourdb' user pass [schema]
See "STYLES" below for how this script handles ASCII art or other extra
command line args (and possibly standard in).
DESCRIPTION
To learn more about bigtop, consult Bigtop::Docs::TOC. It has a list
of all the documentation along with suggestions of where to start.
This script usually takes a bigtop input file and a list of things to
build. The things you can build have the same names as the blocks in
the config section of your bigtop file. You may also choose "all"
which will build all of those things in the order they appear in the
config section.
If you are starting a new app from scratch, you can get a jump start
with the --new flag (or -n):
bigtop --new AppName table1 table2
If you already have a bigtop file, you can add to it with the --add (or
-a):
bigtop --add file.bigtop table3 table4
But, see "STYLES" below for more interesting options than a list of
table names.
Both new and add options do an all build when they finish
making/updating the bigtop file. If you don't want an immediate all
build, try tentmaker with the same flags.
The new option will also try to build a database for the app to use
immediately, by invoking sqlite (if it can find it in your path).
NON-HELP OPTIONS
--create (or -c)
Use this if you already have a bigtop source file and want to make
a brand new app from it. Perhaps someone gave you a bigtop file,
you copied one from the examples directory of the bigtop
distribution, or you built one with tentmaker.
This will make an h2xs style path under the current directory for
the app described in your bigtop file. It will even copy that
bigtop file into the docs directory while it builds whatever you
ask for.
Without this option, if the current directory looks like a bad
place to build, a fatal error will result and you will have to use
this option. A bad place to build is a place where building seems
not to have happened before. If any of these are missing, then the
directory is bad:
Build.PL
Changes
t/
lib/
When create is in effect, the following bigtop config options
affect the location of the initial build:
base_dir
the directory under which all building will happen. Defaults to
the current directory.
app_dir
the subdirectory of base_dir where Build.PL and friends will
live. Defaults to the h2xs style directory name based on your
app's name. If your app section starts:
app App::Name::SubName
then the default app_dir is:
App-Name-SubName
When create is not in effect, these config parameters are ignored
WITH a warning.
--new (or -n) App::Name style_info...
See "STYLES" below for what "style_info" can be. (Hint: it depends
on which style you are using.)
Use this option to create a working application from scratch. If
you only provide an app name, it will use a minimal bigtop
specification. The resulting app will not run (or have any code in
it). You must then augment the bigtop file with tentmaker or a
text editor and regenerate to get a running app.
If you supply optional table names or provide data for a style,
enough additional items will be added to the bigtop file to make a
running app (except that you might need to build the database).
Some of the extra items will be repeated for each model you
request.
In either case, when bigtop finishes, there will be an App-Name
subdirectory of the current directory. In it will be all the usual
pieces describing an app. The bigtop file will be in the docs
directory.
If you have a working sqlite in your path -- and you specified
tables or used a style -- -n will also make an sqlite database
called app.db in the build directory. As it will tell you, you can
change to that directory and start the app immediately.
If you don't have sqlite, a message will explain what to do to
start the app. Mostly this boils down to changing into the new
build directory, creating a database called app.db, and running
app.server with the proper flags for your database engine.
This flag uses the default bigtop file from Bigtop::ScriptHelp
(which you can see by examining examples/default.bigtop in the
distrubution). If you like, you may override that default. To do
so, copy examples/default.bigtop to either bigtopdef in the
directory from which you plan to run bigtop -n, or to .bigtopdef in
your home directory. Edit the file to your heart's content.
The result must be a valid bigtop file, with one exception. The
file you create will be used as a template toolkit template. But,
only three things are available for subsitution:
app_name
The name of the app from the command line.
no_colon_name
The app name, where all ::'s are replaced with underscores.
short_name
Everything after the last :: in the app_name in lower case.
For example see examples/def.bigtop.tt.
If you have a ./bigtopdef or ~/.bigtopdef, but don't want to use it
for a particular instance, set the BIGTOP_REAL_DEF enivornment
variable in your shell.
--add (-a )
If you have an existing bigtop file and want to add tables and
their controllers to it, use this option like this:
bigtop --add file.bigtop style_info...
See "STYLES" below for how to specify table relationships.
This option reads an existing file.bigtop and adds tables and
controllers to it, before doing an all build. (If you don't want
an all build, use the same options with tentmaker.)
Any new tables will be created. Whether existing tables are
updated depends on you style.
Note that this option may disturb comments and whitespace in your
original. It uses Bigtop::Deparser, which cannonicalizes the
whitespace. Basically extraneous whitespace is removed (and
indenting is regularized). When new lines are removed, subsequent
comments drift down in the revised file.
Revision control is always a good idea. It is especially important
here. Make sure file.bigtop is commited to your revision control
system prior to running bigtop in add mode.
--keep_inline (or -k)
Normally, this script removes all traces of the _Inline directory
it used while building your app. Use this option if you want to
save a microscopic amount of time on each regeneration or if you
have an incurable curiosity.
Note that the directory will only be removed if it is really
_Inline in the current directory. If you have a .Inline directory
under home directory etc., the script will not affect it.
--style (or -s)
Defaults to Kickstart. This can be the name of any
Bigtop::ScriptHelp::Style:: module. These styles control how your
command line args, and standard input, turn into bigtop
descriptions. See the docs for you style to see what input is
legal and how it is treated.
HELP OPTIONS
In addition to the flags that do useful things, there are help flags:
--help or -h
Prints a multi-line usage message showing all the options.
--pg_help and --mysql_help
Print advice on how to start your app.server with a Postgres or
MySQL database instead of sqlite. This includes instructions on
creating and building the database, as well as flags app.server
needs in order to reach that database.
STYLES
This section used to explain ASCII art, which was the original style of
command line input. Since then, that code has been factored out. The
original style is now called the kickstart style, or more precisely
"Bigtop::ScriptHelp::Style::Kickstart" and is still the default. See
its docs for a description of ASCII art.
You may explicitly choose the original style:
bigtop -n|-a -s Kickstart 'ascii_art'
But, you may omit -s to get Kickstart by default. Further, you can
replace Kickstart with any module in the Bigtop::ScriptHelp::Style::
namespace. For example:
bigtop -n|-a -s Pg8Live 'dbi:Pg:dbname=yourdb' user pass [schema]
Again, see the docs for your style to see what command line parameters
to use.
AUTHOR
Phil Crow <crow.phil@gmail.com>
COPYRIGHT and LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2005-7 by Phil Crow
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.6 or, at
your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.
perl v5.20.2 2015-08-31 BIGTOP(1)