NAME
File::Comments - Recognizes file formats and extracts format-specific comments
SYNOPSIS
use File::Comments;
my $snoop = File::Comments->new();
# *----------------
# | program.c:
# | /* comment */
# | main () {}
# *----------------
my $comments = $snoop->comments("program.c");
# => [" comment "]
# *----------------
# | script.pl:
# | # comment
# | print "howdy!\n"; # another comment
# *----------------
my $comments = $snoop->comments("script.pl");
# => [" comment", " another comment"]
# or just guess a file's type:
my $type = $snoop->guess_type("program.c");
# => "c"DESCRIPTION
File::Comments guesses the type of a given file, determines the format used for comments, extracts all comments, and returns them as a reference to an array of chunks.
Currently supported are Perl scripts, C/C++ programs, Java, makefiles, JavaScript, Python and PHP.
The plugin architecture used by File::Comments makes it easy to add new formats. To support a new format, a new plugin module has to be installed. No modifications to the File::Comments codebase are necessary, new plugins will be picked up automatically.
File::Comments can also be used to simply guess a file's type. It it somewhat more flexible than File::MMagic and File::Type. File types in File::Comments are typically based on file name suffixes (*.c, *.pl, etc.). If no suffix is available, or a given suffix is ambiguous (e.g. if several plugins have registered a handler for the same suffix), then the file's content is used to narrow down the possibilities and arrive at a decision.
WARNING: THIS MODULE IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT, QUALITY IS ALPHA. IF YOU FIND BUGS, OR WANT TO CONTRIBUTE PLUGINS, PLEASE SEND THEM MY WAY.
FILE TYPES
Currently, the following plugins are included in the File::Comments distribution:
###############################################
# plugin type #
###############################################
File::Comments::Plugin::C c (o)
File::Comments::Plugin::Makefile makefile (X)
File::Comments::Plugin::Perl perl (X)
File::Comments::Plugin::JavaScript js (o)
File::Comments::Plugin::Java java (o)
File::Comments::Plugin::HTML html (X)
File::Comments::Plugin::Python python (o)
File::Comments::Plugin::PHP php (o)
(X) Fully implemented
(o) Implemented with regular expressions, only works for
easy cases until real parsers are employed.The constants listed in the type column are the strings returned by the guess_type() method.
Writing new plugins
Writing a new plugin to add functionality to the File::Comments framework is as simple as defining a new module, derived from the baseclass of all plugins, File::Comments::Plugin. Three additional methods are needed: init(), type(), and comments().
init() gets called when the mothership finds the plugin and initializes it. This is the time to register extensions that the plugin wants to handle.
The second mandatory method for a plugin is type(), which returns a string, indicating the type of the file examined. Usually this can be done without further ado, since a basic plugin will called only on files which it registered for by suffix. Exceptions to this are explained later.
The third method is comments(), which returns a reference to an array of comment lines. The content of the source file to be examined will be available in
$self->{target}->{content}by the time comments() gets called.
And that's it. Here's a functional basic plugin, registering a new suffix ".odd" with the mothership and expecting files with comment lines that start with ODDCOMMENT:
###########################################
package File::Comments::Plugin::Oddball;
###########################################
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Comments::Plugin;
our $VERSION = "0.01";
our @ISA = qw(File::Comments::Plugin);
###########################################
sub init {
###########################################
my($self) = @_;
$self->register_suffix(".odd");
}
###########################################
sub type {
###########################################
my($self) = @_;
return "odd";
}
###########################################
sub comments {
###########################################
my($self) = @_;
# Some code to extract all comments from
# $self->{target}->{content}:
my @comments = ($self->{target}->{content} =~ /^ODDCOMMENT:(.*)/);
return \@comments;
}
1;Advanced plugins
If a file doesn't have an extension or an extensions that's served by multiple plugins, File::Comments will go shop around and ask all plugins if they want to handle the file. The mothership calls each plugin's applicable() method, passing it an object of type File::Comments::Target, which contains the following fields:
When the plugin gets such a cold call (indicated by the third parameter to applicable(), it can either accept or deny the request. To arrive at a decision, it can peek into the target object. The Perl plugin illustrates this:
###########################################
sub applicable {
###########################################
my($self, $target, $cold_call) = @_;
return 1 unless $cold_call;
return 1 if $target->{content} =~ /^#!.*perl\b/;
return 0;
}If a plugin does not define a applicable() method, a default method is inherited from the base class File::Comments::Plugin, which looks like this:
###########################################
sub applicable {
###########################################
my($self, $target, $cold_call) = @_;
return 0 if $cold_call;
return 1;
}This will deny all cold calls and only accept requests for files with suffixes or base names the plugin has already signed up for.
LEGALESE
Copyright 2005 by Mike Schilli, all rights reserved. This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
AUTHOR
2005, Mike Schilli <cpan@perlmeister.com>