gostatic

Gostatic is a static site generator. It tracks file changes during compilation,
which is why it works reasonably fast. Also it provides framework for
configuration akin to Make, which makes it easy to understand
and to write custom configurations.

Features include:

• No run-time dependencies, just a single binary - download it and run
• Dependency tracking and re-rendering only changed pages
• Markdown support
• Simple config syntax
• Flexible filter system
• Support for pagination
• Plays well with external commands and scripts
• HTTP server and watcher (instant rendering on changes)
• Suitable for automation (ability to query state with gostatic --dump)

And all in all, it works nicely for me, so it may work for you!

Installation

If you're Go user and want to install this from source, you know what to do (go get it).

In other case, download a binary from
releases page - which also
serves as CHANGELOG.

If you need to automate downloading latest release, I use this script (change
64-linux to the type you need):

URL=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/piranha/gostatic/releases, awk '/download_url.*64-linux/ { print $2; exit }')
curl -Lso gostatic $(URL)
chmod +x gostatic

Quick Start

Run gostatic -i my-site to generate basic site in directory my-site. It will
have a basic config file, which you should edit to put relevant variables at
the top - it also contains description of how files in your src directory are
treated.

src directory obviously contains sources of your site (name of this directory
can be changed in config). You can follow general idea of this directory to
create new blog posts or new pages. All files, which are not mentioned in
config, are just copied over. Run gostatic -fv config to see how your src
is processed.

site.tmpl is a file that defines templates your are able to use for your
pages. You can see those templates mentioned in config.

And, finally, there is a Makefile, just for convenience. Run make to build
your site once or make w to run watcher and server, to see your site changes
in real time.

Also, you could look at my site for
an example of advanced usage.

Good luck! And remember, your contributions either to gostatic or to
documentation (even if it's just this README.md) are always very welcome!

Documentation index:

• Approach
• Speed
• External Resources
• Configuration
  • Constants
• Page Config
• Processors
• Template API Reference
  • Global Functions
  • Page interface
  • Page list interface
  • Site interface
• Extensibility

Also, see wiki - and feel free to
add more information there!

Approach

Each given file is processed through a pipeline of filters, which modify the
file state and then rendered on disk. Single input file corresponds to a single
output file, but filters can generate virtual input files (like tag files).

File is rendering in those cases:

• output file does not exists
• file source is newer than it's output
• one of those is the case for one of file's dependencies

All files are sorted by date. This date is taken in their config
or, in case if date in config is absent or dates there are equal, by file
modification time.

Speed

On 2015 MacBook Air (i7 2.2, 8 GB RAM, SSD) it takes 0.45s to generate a site
of 630 pages (0.18s for 250 pages, seems to be linear), 0.1s to check there
are no modifications and 0.16s to re-render a single changed page (along with
index and tag pages, coming to 93 pages in total).

Also note that if you're using various external post-processors (like uglifyjs
or sassc) they tend to slow down things a bit (for my specific use case both
uglifyjs and sassc add another 0.25s when files they process change).

To reproduce numbers, download hyperfine, download gostatic, clone
solovyov.net, comment out :uglifyjs and :sassc in config and then run:

• hyperfine 'gostatic -f config'
• hyperfine 'gostatic config'
• hyperfine 'touch src/blog/2017/fuji-raw.md && gostatic config'

External resources

• Jack Pearkes made a Heroku buildpack for gostatic.

Configuration

Config syntax is Makefile-inspired with some simplifications, look at the
example:

TEMPLATES = site.tmpl templates-folder
SOURCE = src
OUTPUT = site

# this is a comment
*.md:
    config
    ext .html
    directorify
    tags tags/*.tag
    markdown
    template page # yeah, this is a comment as well

index.md: blog/*.md
    config
    ext .html
    inner-template
    markdown
    template page

*.tag: blog/*.md
    ext .html
    directorify
    template tag
    markdown
    template page

Here we have constants declaration (first three lines), a comment and then three
rules. One for any markdown file, one specifically for index.md and one for
generated tags.

Specific rules override generic matching rules, but logic is not exactly very
smart, and there is no real precedence defined, so if you have several matches
for a single file you could end up with any of them. Note that there is some
order: exact path match, exact name match, glob path match, glob name
match. NOTE: this may change in future.

Rules consist of path/match, list of dependencies (also paths and matches, the
ones listed after colon) and commands.

Each command consists of a name of processor and (possibly) some
arguments. Arguments are separated by spaces.

Note: if a file has no rules whatsoever, it will be copied to exactly same
location at destination as it was in source without being read into memory. So
heavy images etc shouldn't be a problem.

Constants

There are three configuration constants:

• SOURCE - sources to read (relative to location of config)
• OUTPUT - directory for output (relative to location of config)
• TEMPLATES - list of files and/or directories (containing *.tmpl files),
  which will be parsed as Go templates. Each file can contain more than one
  template (see docs
  on that).

You can also use arbitrary names for constants to
access later from templates - just use any other name
(AUTHOR could be one).

All constants can also be accessed from the config itself, using
$(CONSTANT_NAME) syntax, just like in Makefile.

Page Config

Page config is only processed if you specify config processor for a page. It's
format is name: value, for example:

title: This is a page
tags: test
date: 2013-01-05

Parsed properties:

• title - page title.
• tags - list of tags, separated by ,.
• date - page date, could be used for blog. Accepts formats from bigger to
  smaller (from "2006-01-02 15:04:05 -07" to "2006-01-02")
• hide - false if not specified or is one of f, false, False,
  FALSE. True in other cases. Hides page from children and tag lists when true.

You can also define any other property you like, it's value will be treated as a
string and it's key is capitalized and put on the .Other
page property.

Processors

You can always check list of available processors with gostatic --processors.

• config - reads config from content. Config should be in format "name: value"
  and separated by four dashes on empty line (----) from content.

• ignore - ignore file.

• rename <new-name> - rename a file to new-name. New name can contain *,
  then it will be replaced with whatever * captured in path match. Right now
  rename touches whole path, so be careful (you may need to include whole
  path in rename pattern) - this may change in future.

• ext <.ext> - change file extension to a given one (which should be prefixed
  with a dot).

• directorify - rename a file from whatever/name.html to
  whatever/name/index.html.

• markdown - process content as Markdown.

• inner-template - process content as Go template.

• template <name> - pass page to a template named <name>.

• tags <path-pattern> - create a virtual page for all tags of a current
  page. This tag page has path formed by replacing * in <path-pattern> with
  a tag name and has a tag as its .Title (use {{ range .Site.Pages.WithTag .Title }}...{{end}} to get a list of tagged pages.

• relativize - change all urls archored at / to be relative (i.e. add
  appropriate amount of ../) so that generated content can be deployed in a
  subfolder of a site.

• external <command> <args...> - call external command with content of a page
  as stdin and using stdout as a new content of a page. Has a shortcut:
  :<command> <args...> (: is replaced with external ).

• paginate <n> <path-pattern> - create a virtual page for each n of pages
  (grouped by path-pattern, so you can paginate few groups of pages as a
  single one). path-pattern has * replaced by an index of this virtual page
  (1-based), and you can get a list of pages with {{ range paginator .}}...{{end}} (see paginator function). Using paginate
  with the same path-pattern on different types of pages will group them in
  same paginated list (request: please open an
  issue if you have an idea
  how to phrase this better).

• jekyllify - creating pages in jekyll style, for example, the page
  2018-02-02-name.md will be converted to /2018/02/02/name.md.

• yaml - read the configuration for the page using yaml format (like jekyll).

Template API Reference

Templating is provided using
Go templates. See link for documentation
on syntax.

Each template is executed in context of a page. This means it
has certain properties and methods it can output or call to generate content,
i.e. {{ .Content }} will output page content in place.

Global functions

Go template system provides some convenient
functions, and gostatic
expands on that a bit:

• changed <name> <value> - checks if value has changed since previous call
  with the same name. Storage used for checking is global over the whole run of
  gostatic, so choose unique names for different places.

• cut <begin> <end> <value> - cut partial content from <value>, delimited
  by regular expressions <begin> and <end>.

• hash <value> - return 32-bit hash of a given value.

• version <page> <path> - return relative URL to a page with resulting path
  <path> with ?v=<32-bit hash> appended (use to override cache settings for
  static files).

• truncate <length> <value> - truncate string to given length (if it's
  longer).

• strip_html <value> - remove all HTML tags from string.

• strip_newlines <value> - remove all line breaks and newlines from string.

• replace <old> <new> <value> - replace all occurrences of old with new in
  value.

• replacen <old> <new> <n> <value> - same as above, but only n times.

• replacere <pattern> <replacement> <value> - replace text in value
  according to regexp pattern and
  replacement.

• split <separator> <value> - split string by separator, generating an array
  (you can use range with result of this function).

• contains <needle> <value> - check if a string value contains needle.

• starts <needle> <value> - check if a string value starts with needle.

• ends <needle> <value> - check if a string value ends with needle.

• matches <pattern> <value> - check if a
  regexp pattern matches string value.

• markdown <value> - convert a string (value) from Markdown to HTML.

• paginator <page> - get a paginator object for
  current page (only works on pages created by paginate processor).

• exec <cmd> [<arg1> <arg2> ....] - exec a command with (optional) arguments.

• exectext <cmd> [<arg1> <arg2> ....] <text> - exec a command with (optional)
  arguments and text bound to command's stdin.

• excerpt <text> <maxWordCount> - Gets an excerpt from the given text, to a
  maximum of maxWordCount words. When the text is shortened, it will produce
  an [...] string, denoting there's more. For example, The quick brown fox
  with maxWordCount of 2 will result in The quick [...].

• even <n> - tests if n is divisible by 2.

• odd <n> - tests if n is not divisible by 2.

Page interface

• .Site - global site object.
• .Rule - rule object, matched by page.
• .Pattern - pattern, which matched this page.
• .Deps - list of pages, which are dependencies for this page.
• .Next - next page in a list of all site pages (use specific PageSlice's
  .Next method if you need more precise matching).
• .Prev - previous page in a list of all site pages (use specific PageSlice's
  .Prev method if you need more precise matching).

• .Source - relative path to page source.
• .FullSource - full path to page source.
• .Path - relative path to page destination.
• .FullPath - full path to page destination.
• .ModTime - page last modification time.

• .Title - page title.
• .Tags - list of page tags.
• .Date - page date, as defined in page config.
• .Hide - boolean if page is going to be absent from {{ .Children }} or {{ .WithTag }} lists.
• .Other - map of all other properties (capitalized) from
  page config, like {{ .Other.Author }}.

• .Raw - page content after preprocessors (i.e. after config has stripped it
  part), that was originally read from the disk.
• .Content - page content.
• .Url - page url (i.e. .Path, but with index.html stripped from the end).
• .Name - page name (i.e. last part of .Url).
• .UrlTo <other-page> - relative url from current to some other page.
• .Rel <url> - relative url to given absolute (anchored at /) url.
• .Is <url> - checks if page is at passed url (or path) - use it for marking
  active elements in menu, for example.
• .UrlMatches <pattern> - checks if page url matches regular expression
  <pattern>.
• .Has <field> <value> - backend for .Where and .WhereNot, checks if field equals to value, or:
  • "Url" - calls UrlMatches
  • "Tag" - checks tag is present in .Tags
  • "Source" - matches source path for value.

Paginator interface

• .Number - number of paginator page, first is 1
• .PathPattern - whatever was passed as path-pattern to paginate
  (processor)[#processors]
• .Page - paginator's own page
• .Pages - list of pages
• .Prev - previous paginator object (if current is first, then nil)
• .Next - next paginator object (if current is last, then nil)

Page list interface

• .Get <n> - page number <n>.
• .First - first page.
• .Last - last page.
• .Len - length of page list.
• .Prev <page> - return page with earlier date than given. Returns nil if no
  earlier pages exist or page is not in page list.
• .Next <page> - return page with later date than given. Returns nil if no
  later pages exist or page is not in page list.
• .Slice <from> <to> - return pages from from to to (i.e. from 0 to 10).

• .Children <prefix> - list of pages, nested under <prefix>.
• .WithTag <tag-name> - list of pages, tagged with <tag-name>.
• .Reverse - list of pages, sorted in reverse order.

• .BySource <path> - finds a page with source path <path>.
• .ByPath <path> - finds a page with resulting path <path>.
• .GlobSource <pattern> - list of pages, matching source path <pattern>.
• .Where <field> <value> - list of pages, which return true for .Has <field> <value>
• .WhereNot <field> <value> - list of pages, which return false for .Has <field> <value>

Site interface

• .Pages - list of all pages.
• .Source - path to site source.
• .Output - path to site destination.
• .Templates - list of template files used for the site.
• .Other - any other properties (capitalized) defined in site config.

Extensibility

Obviously, the easiest way to extend gostatic's functionality is to use
external processor. It makes you able to process files in the
way you want, but is more or less limited to that. There is no API right now to
create pages on the fly (like tags processor does) using this method, for
example.

But gostatic itself is a
library, and you can
write your own static site generator using this library. See
gostatic.go for
an example of one.