bUwUma

Build Websites Using Make

Overview

bUwUma is a build system that uses GNU make and a preprocessor written in python to build static, multilingual websites.

This readme only documents the preprocessor. For more information and a quickstart guide on how to use bUwUma, please refer to the article on my website.

HTML Preprocessor Documentation

Syntax

Commands

• All commands must be located within a html comment that starts with <!-- and ends with -->.
• Commands start with a # character, the command must follow the # immediately.
• Everything after the command until the end of the comment or a newline character are considered the argument of the command.

<!-- #command everything here is an argument -->
<!--
    #command everything here is an argument
    #anothercommand more arguments
    While this is a comment right now, it will be UNCOMMENTED in the after the preprocessor finishes!
    #comment This will be a single line html comment after the preprocessor finishes.
-->

• All commands return a string, which can be empty.
• If a comment contains a command, the entire comment will replaced with the return value of the command.
• If there are multiple commands in a comment, it will be replaced by all the return values added together.

Variables

• Variable names must only consist of these characters: a-zA-Z0-9_
• A variable with name varname can be used like this: #$(varname)
• A variable usage will be replaced by the value of the variable
• Any variable that has is not defined has empty string as value

General

• Whitespaces around a token are ignored, so <!--#include dir/file--> is the same as <!-- #include dir/file -->
• If a command-comment takes up a whole line, the whole line including the newline character is replaced.

Commands

include

Include the content of a file at the position of the command.

Synopsis: <!-- #include path/to-a-text-file.html -->

Argument: A absolute or relative path to a text file

Return Value: The content of the file or <!-- Could not include '{args}' --> empty string if the file can not be opened.

---

set

Set the value of a variable

Synopsis: Set the value of varname to this is the value: <!-- #set varname this is the value -->

Set the value of varname depending on the value of othervar: <!-- #set varname othervar?{*:fallback,key1:val1,key2:val2...}>

Argument: The first word is the name of the variable, the rest is the value or a dictionary.

Return Value: Empty string

You can make the value of varname dependant on the value of another variable othervar by using a dictionary-like syntax described above. In this case, varname will take the first value from the dictionary that matches tha value of othervar. * always everything and can be used as fallback. General wildcards like a* to match everything that starts with a are not supported. Instead of commas , you can also use semicolons ; as separators, but this must be consistend within the map.

return

Same as set, but it returns the value of the variable that is being set. This is meant to use with maps, when you need a variable from a map you can 'inline' it with return

default

Same as set, but it sets the variable's value only if it has no value yet.

---

comment

Comment the arguemnts.

Synopsis: <!-- #comment This will stay as comment in the html -->

Argument: Any string

Return Value: The argument in comment tags

This can be useful in multi-line comments that contain other commands: In that case, the comment tags will be removed and each command replaced with its return value, so if you want to just have commented text in there you can use #comment

uncomment

Uncomment the comment.

Synopsis: <!-- #uncomment This will not be commented -->

Argument: Any string

Return Value: The argument

This can be useful when you want to look at the unprocessed html without variables or when your syntax highlighting gets confused by a variable.

---

conditionals

To turn on or off entire blocks, if, elif can else be used. These commands must not be in multi-line comments. Logical and && and logical or || can be used to chain conditions. If a condition is true, the corresponding block is included while all other blocks are deleted.

Synopsis ... ... ...

Argument Condition for if and elif, ignored for else and endif Return Value Empty String

---

sidenav

Manage the generation of a content menu which contains links to all headings in your html that have an id. The menu is called sidenav here. An entry is a html heading with a id: <h1 id=myheading>This heading will be linked in the sidenav</h1>

Synopsis: <!-- #sidenav sidenav-command arguments --> sidenav-command must be one of the following:

include

Include the generated sidenav at this position. This command will always be executed last, after the whole file has been parsed.

Argument: Ignored

Return Value: The generated sidenav

section

Group all following entries in named section.

Argument: The name of the section

Return Value Empty string

name

Use a custom name instead of the heading itself for the link to the next heading.

Argument: The link-name of the next heading

Return Value: Empty string

custom

Include a custom link in the sidenav.

Synopsis: <!-- #sidenav custom href="my-link" name="Go to my link!" -->

Argument: Must be href="..." name="...". Either single ' or double " quotes are required.

Return Value: Empty string

---

Pitfalls

• The #include command must not be in the last line of the file
• The #include command can not be in multi-line comment if the included file also contains comments
• #if, #elif, #else and #endif must not be in multi-line comments
• The maps in set must have at least 2 options
• If you want to use variables in markdown, you have to escape the # with a backslash, so #$(var) becomes \#$(var)
• You can not use the return command from within the arguments of other commands. Commands are executed in order, so return will end up as argument of the first command and thus never be executed