[](https://pypi.org/project/anchovy)
[](https://pypi.org/project/anchovy)
[](https://github.com/pydsigner/anchovy)
[](https://github.com/pydsigner/anchovy)
# Anchovy
Anchovy is a minimal, unopinionated file processing engine intended for static
website generation.
* **Minimal:** Anchovy's core code is just a few hundred lines of code and has
no mandatory dependencies. Plus, Anchovy can be used for real projects without
bringing in dependencies on external executables or languages, even if you
want to preprocess CSS.
* **Unopinionated:** Anchovy offers a set of components which can be easily
configured to your site's exact requirements, without tediously ripping out
or overriding entrenched behaviors. Anchovy does not assume you are building
a blog or that you wish to design your templates in a specific way. You can
even build things that aren't websites! Plus, Anchovy operates on files, so
it's simple to integrate tools like imagemagick, dart-sass, or less.js if you
need them.
## Installation
Anchovy has no essential prerequisites and can be installed with
`pip install anchovy` to get just the framework and a few built-in components,
but for typical usage `pip install anchovy[base]` is recommended. This will
pull in support for Jinja2 templating, markdown, and Anchovy's CSS preprocessor.
A full list of available extras may be found in the [pyproject.toml](https://github.com/pydsigner/anchovy/blob/master/pyproject.toml)
file.
Alternatively, Anchovy may be installed directly from source with
`pip install git+https://github.com/pydsigner/anchovy` or the corresponding
`pip install git+https://github.com/pydsigner/anchovy#egg=anchovy[base]`.
## Command Line Usage
Anchovy operates on config files written in Python, or even modules directly.
* `python -m anchovy -h`
* `anchovy -m mypackage.anchovyconf -o ../release/`
* `python -m anchovy mysite/anchovy_site.py -- -h`
```python
from pathlib import Path
from anchovy import (
DirectCopyStep,
InputBuildSettings,
JinjaMarkdownStep,
OutputDirPathCalc,
REMatcher,
Rule,
)
# Optional, and can be overridden with CLI arguments.
SETTINGS = InputBuildSettings(
input_dir=Path('site'),
output_dir=Path('build'),
)
RULES = [
# Ignore dotfiles found in either the input_dir or the working dir.
Rule(
(
REMatcher(r'(.*/)*\..*', dir='input_dir')
| REMatcher(r'(.*/)*\..*', dir='working_dir')
),
None
),
# Render markdown files, then stop processing them.
Rule(
REMatcher(r'.*\.md'),
[OutputDirPathCalc('.html'), None],
JinjaMarkdownStep()
),
# Copy everything else in static/ directories through.
Rule(
REMatcher(r'(.*/)*static/.*', dir='input_dir'),
OutputDirPathCalc(),
DirectCopyStep()
),
]
```
This example is very simple, but is legitimately enough for a small website.
If we stored the configuration in `config.py` and added a raw site like this:
```
site/
static/
styles.css
toolbar.js
base.jinja.html
index.md
about.md
contact.md
```
`python -m anchovy config.py` would produce output like this:
```
output/
static/
styles.css
toolbar.js
index.html
about.html
contact.html
```
This example can be found in runnable form as [examples/basic_site.py](https://github.com/pydsigner/anchovy/blob/master/examples/basic_site.py)
in the source distribution. Available command line arguments can be seen by
passing `-h`: `python -m anchovy examples/basic_site.py -- -h`. The `--` is
required because `anchovy` itself also accepts the flag.
## Programmatic Usage
Anchovy is very usable from the command line, but projects desiring to
customize behavior, for example by running tasks before or after pipeline
execution, may utilize `anchovy.cli.run_from_rules()`:
```python
import time
from pathlib import Path
from anchovy.cli import run_from_rules
from anchovy.core import Context
from my_site.config import SETTINGS, RULES
class MyContext(Context):
def find_inputs(path: Path):
# Only process files modified in the last hour.
hour_ago = time.time() - 3600
for candidate in super().find_inputs(path):
if candidate.stat().st_mtime > hour_ago:
yield candidate
def main():
print('Pretending to run pre-pipeline tasks...')
run_from_rules(SETTINGS, RULES, context_cls=MyContext)
print('Pretending to run post-pipeline tasks...')
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
```