My Development Tools

Whether developing on my desktop or laptop, Linux or Windows, my tools of choice are pretty bare-bones. I edit my files in vim and I incrementally develop my program by using my "kr" script. "kr" looks for changes in whatever files you give it, and then reruns a command when it detects a change. I.e.:


> kr *.py -c 'tests.py'


Would look for a change in any .py file and rerun the "tests.py" script.


> kr *.c *.h makefile -c 'make ; application param1 param2'


Would look for a change in any .c/.h file, or the makefile, and when a change is detected it remakes and runs "application" with the two params "param1" and "param2".

Developing is easy, just save the file I'm editing and look in the other window to see what happens with the new code. Usually I use this for re-running a python program, which I develop a bit at a time. I fix an error, save, and quickly see the next error. It works best, of course, when the file is able to run quickly.

I've also used it to check for a data file change, at which point it regenerates an image. In another window a separate "kr" script looks for a change in the image file, and runs a program to render it. (The two "kr" scripts had to run on different machines, or else they could have been combined.)

Find the current version here.

#Copyright 2012 Mark Santesson
#
#   Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
#   you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
#   You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
#   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
#   distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
#   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
#   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
#   limitations under the License.

import sys
import time
import re
import stat
import os
import glob
import operator
import optparse


if __name__ == "__main__":

    parser = optparse.OptionParser (
                        usage = '%prog -c  files ...',
                        description = 'Repeatedly run a command whenever any one of a list of files changes.')
    parser.add_option('-c', '--command', dest='command', type="string",
            help='Specify command to run when a change is detected')
    options, args = parser.parse_args()

#    print "Found args: " + repr(args)
#    print "Found command: " + repr(options.command)

    if not args:
        print '\n' + os.path.basename( sys.argv[0] ) + ' requires some files to monitor.'
        sys.exit(1)

    if not options.command:
        print '\nError: A command to run is required.'
        sys.exit(1)


    file_times = dict()
    globbed = sum( [ glob.glob(x) for x in args ], [] )
    for x in globbed:
        file_times[x] = 0.0

    print file_times

    while True:
        rerun = False

        for f in file_times.keys():
            attempts_left = 5
            t = None
            while attempts_left and t == None:
                try:
                    t = os.stat(f)[ stat.ST_MTIME ]
                except WindowsError, e:
                    time.sleep(0.1)
                    attempts_left -= 1

            if t > file_times[f]:
                rerun = True
                file_times[f] = t

        if rerun:
            print time.strftime('\n\n--- Rerunning at %H:%M:%S :') + repr(options.command)
            ret = os.system( options.command )

            if ret:
                print '\n\n--- ERRORED %r' % (ret,) + time.strftime(' at %H:%M:%S.')

            else:
                print time.strftime('\n\n--- Done at %H:%M:%S.')

        else:
            time.sleep(0.5)

else:
    raise Exception( 'This module is not meant to be imported.' )

My Development Tools by Mark Santesson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.