merger-cli 3.3.0

Merger is a tool that scans a directory, filters files using customizable patterns, and merges readable content into a single output file.

Merger CLI

Merger is a command-line utility for developers that scans a directory, filters files using customizable ignore patterns, and merges all readable content into a single output file, suitable both for human reading and for use by AI models. It supports multiple output formats (e.g., JSON, directory tree, plain text with file delimiters), and can be extended with custom file parsers (e.g., .pdf) and custom exporters (e.g., .xml, .md).

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TLDR

1. Install Python 3.8 or newer
2. Create and activate a virtual environment: (If you want the CLI to be available globally, see Global Installation)
   • Windows: python -m venv .venv && .venv\Scripts\activate
   • Linux/macOS: python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
3. Install libmagic if not installed:
   • Windows: Automatically downloaded
   • Linux: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libmagic1
   • macOS: brew install libmagic
4. Install the package: pip install merger-cli
5. Verify the installation: merger --version
6. Navigate to your project folder: cd path/to/your/project
7. Create a merger ignore file: Manually or with merger -c [TEMPLATE] (See Custom Ignore Templates)
8. Execute merger-cli: merger . to create a single combined file called merger.txt

For more options, refer to the Usage section below.

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Summary

1. Features
2. Dependencies
3. Installation
4. Usage
5. Ignore Pattern Syntax
6. Output Formats
7. Custom Parsers
8. Custom Exporters
9. CLI Options
10. License

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Features

• Recursive merge of all readable files under a root directory.
• Custom glob-like ignore patterns for filtering.
• Automatic file encoding detection.
• Modular parser & exporter system for custom formats and outputs with easy CLI management.
• Multiple export formats (built-in and custom).
• Modern CLI interface.

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Dependencies

• Python (3.8+)
• libmagic
  • Windows: Automatically downloaded
  • Linux: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libmagic1
  • macOS: brew install libmagic

All Python package requirements are listed in requirements.txt.

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Installation

Virtual Environment (Recommended)

1. Create a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv .venv
   

2. Activate the virtual environment:

   • Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
   • Linux/macOS: source .venv/bin/activate

3. Install the package:

   pip install merger-cli
   

4. Verify the installation:

   merger --version
   

Global Installation

If you want the CLI to be available globally, it is recommended to use pipx:

1. Install pipx (if you don't have it):

   • Windows: python -m pip install --user pipx
   • Linux: sudo apt update && sudo apt install pipx
   • macOS: brew install pipx

2. Install merger-cli:

   pipx install merger-cli
   

3. Ensure path:

   pipx ensurepath
   

4. Restart your terminal.

5. Verify the installation:

   merger --version
   

Note: If you want to use custom modules that require external libraries (e.g., pymupdf), you need to inject them into the merger-cli environment:

pipx inject merger-cli pymupdf

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Usage

Basic merge

merger .

Note: A merger.ignore file is required in the current directory for the tool to run. You can create one quickly using merger --create-ignore.

This writes a file named merger.txt in the current directory.

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Save output to a specific directory

merger ./project ./out

This writes ./out/merger.txt (or ./out/merger.json, depending on the exporter).

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Pick an output format

Use -e or --exporter to select the output format:

merger ./src --exporter JSON

merger ./src --exporter DIRECTORY_TREE

merger ./src --exporter PLAIN_TEXT

merger ./src --exporter TREE_PLAIN_TEXT

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Custom ignore patterns

Provide one or more ignore patterns with --ignore (see Ignore Pattern Syntax):

merger ./project --ignore "*.log" "__pycache__/**" "*.tmp"

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Custom ignore file

Provide a file containing ignore patterns (one per line) with --merger-ignore (see Ignore Pattern Syntax):

merger . --merger-ignore "C:\Users\USER\Desktop\ignore.txt"

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Custom ignore templates

Quickly create a merger.ignore file using built-in templates:

merger -c PYTHON

Supported templates: DEFAULT, PYTHON, JAVASCRIPT, TYPESCRIPT, JAVA, GO, RUST, CPP, CSHARP, RUBY, PHP, KOTLIN.

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Custom modules (Parsers & Exporters)

List all installed custom modules (parsers and exporters):

merger --list

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Verbose output

merger ./src --log-level DEBUG

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Ignore Pattern Syntax

Ignore patterns are evaluated relative to the input directory (the scan root). merger-cli uses standard Git-style matching (via pathspec), with some additional custom qualifiers.

Recursive vs. Anchored

• Recursive: Patterns with no slashes (or starting with **/) match anywhere in the directory tree.
  • Example: *.log matches root/app.log and root/logs/app.log.
• Anchored: Patterns with at least one internal slash or a leading slash are anchored to the scan root.
  • Example: src/*.py matches root/src/main.py but not root/project/src/main.py.
  • Example: /config.json matches root/config.json but not root/subdir/config.json.
• Leading ./: Normalized to / and treated as an anchored pattern.

Pattern Components

• * matches any number of characters within a single path segment.
• ** matches zero or more directories.
  • Example: **/node_modules/ matches node_modules at any depth.
• ? matches exactly one character.
• [seq] matches any character in seq.

Type qualifiers

• Trailing / requires the matched path to be a directory

  • Example: build/ matches the build directory entry

• Trailing : requires the matched path to be a file

  • Example: README.md: matches the README.md file

• Trailing !:

  • This is a special escape suffix that disables type qualification and preserves any trailing / or : as literal characters in the final path segment

    • Examples:
      • data:! matches any file or directory literally named data:
      • data:: matches any file literally named data:
      • data:/ matches any directory literally named data:
      • data!! matches any file or directory literally named data!
      • data!/ matches any directory literally named data!
      • data!: matches any file literally named data!

Examples

Ignore all files or directories that end with .log:

• *.log (Recursive)

Ignore the dist directory at the scan root:

• dist/ (Anchored because it has a slash)

Ignore all node_modules directories anywhere:

• **/node_modules/ (Recursive)

Ignore a file named config.json at the scan root:

• /config.json:

Ignore all .py files directly under the root src directory:

• src/*.py:

Ignore all __pycache__ directories inside the root src directory:

• src/**/__pycache__/

Ignore all files data::

• data::

Ignore all directories data::

• data:/

Ignore all files or directories data::

• data:!

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Output Formats

Merger writes one output file to the output directory, named merger.<extension> based on the selected exporter.

Exporter Name	File Extension	Description
TREE_PLAIN_TEXT	.txt	Directory tree + plain-text merged file contents (default).
PLAIN_TEXT	.txt	Plain-text merged file contents with <<FILE_START>> / <<FILE_END>> file delimiter.
TREE	.txt	Directory tree only.
JSON	.json	JSON mapping file paths to parsed file contents (path: content).
JSON_TREE	.json	Structured JSON representing the directory tree and file contents with hierarchy and metadata.

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Custom Parsers

Merger uses parser strategies to support parsing of non-text file formats (e.g., PDF, images with OCR, etc.).

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Parser Abstract Class

All parsers must inherit from Parser:

from merger.parsing.parser import Parser

Required structure:

• EXTENSIONS: Set[str] (e.g., {".pdf"})
• MAX_BYTES_FOR_VALIDATION: Optional[int]
• validate(cls, file_chunk_bytes, *, file_path=None, logger=None) -> bool
• parse(cls, file_bytes, *, file_path=None, logger=None) -> str

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Managing Custom Parsers

To install a module:

merger --install path/to/parser.py

To uninstall a module (* removes all modules including parsers and exporters):

merger --uninstall <module_id>

To list installed modules:

merger --list

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Custom Parser Example (PDF)

import logging
from pathlib import Path
from typing import Union, Optional, Set, Type

import pymupdf
from merger.parsing.parser import Parser


class PdfParser(Parser):
    EXTENSIONS: Set[str] = {".pdf"}
    MAX_BYTES_FOR_VALIDATION: Optional[int] = None

    @classmethod
    def validate(
        cls,
        file_chunk_bytes: Union[bytes, bytearray],
        *,
        file_path: Optional[Path] = None,
        logger: Optional[logging.Logger] = None
    ) -> bool:
        """
        Validate that the given file represents a readable PDF document.

        Args:
            file_chunk_bytes: Binary contents of the file being validated, sufficient to perform validation.
            file_path: Path of the file being validated.
            logger: Optional logger instance for logging.

        Returns:
            bool: True if the file is a readable PDF, False otherwise.
        """
        try:
            with pymupdf.open(stream=file_chunk_bytes) as doc:
                _ = doc[0]
            return True

        except Exception:
            return False

    @classmethod
    def parse(
        cls,
        file_bytes: Union[bytes, bytearray],
        *,
        file_path: Optional[Path] = None,
        logger: Optional[logging.Logger] = None,
    ) -> str:
        """
        Extracts and concatenates text from all pages of a PDF file.

        Args:
            file_bytes: Binary contents of the file being parsed.
            file_path: Path of the file being parsed.
            logger: optional logger instance for logging.

        Returns:

        """
        texts = []
        with pymupdf.open(stream=file_bytes) as doc:
            for page in doc:
                text = page.get_text()
                if text:
                    text = text.replace("\n\n", "")
                    texts.append(text)

        full_text = " ".join(texts)
        return full_text


parser_cls: Type[Parser] = PdfParser

Available at examples/custom_parsers/pdf_parser.py.

The module must expose a parser_cls object referencing the parser class.

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Custom Exporters

You can also extend Merger with custom export strategies to output data in any format (e.g., XML, Markdown, CSV).

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Exporter Abstract Class

All exporters must inherit from TreeExporter:

from merger.exporters.tree_exporter import TreeExporter

Required structure:

• NAME: str (The name used in --exporter)
• FILE_EXTENSION: str (The output file extension)
• export(cls, tree: FileTree) -> bytes

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Managing Custom Exporters

To install an exporter:

merger --install path/to/exporter.py

To uninstall an exporter (* removes all modules including parsers and exporters):

merger --uninstall <exporter_id>

To list installed exporters:

merger --list

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Custom Exporter Example (XML)

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

from merger.file_tree.entries import FileEntry, DirectoryEntry, FileTreeEntry
from merger.exporters.tree_exporter import TreeExporter
from merger.file_tree.tree import FileTree


class XmlExporter(TreeExporter):
    """
    A custom exporter that generates an XML representation of the file tree.
    """
    NAME = "XML"
    FILE_EXTENSION = ".xml"

    @classmethod
    def export(cls, tree: FileTree) -> bytes:
        root = ET.Element("filetree")
        cls._to_xml(tree.root, root)

        cls._indent(root)

        return ET.tostring(root, encoding="utf-8", xml_declaration=True)

    @classmethod
    def _to_xml(cls, entry: FileTreeEntry, parent: ET.Element):
        if isinstance(entry, FileEntry):
            file_el = ET.SubElement(parent, "file", {
                "name": entry.name,
                "path": entry.path.as_posix()
            })
            content_el = ET.SubElement(file_el, "content")
            content_el.text = entry.content

        elif isinstance(entry, DirectoryEntry):
            dir_el = ET.SubElement(parent, "directory", {
                "name": entry.name,
                "path": entry.path.as_posix()
            })
            for child in sorted(entry.children.values(), key=lambda e: e.name.lower()):
                cls._to_xml(child, dir_el)

    @classmethod
    def _indent(cls, elem: ET.Element, level: int = 0):
        """
        Recursive function to indent XML elements while preserving text content.
        """
        i = "\n" + level * "  "
        if len(elem):
            if not elem.text or not elem.text.strip():
                elem.text = i + "  "

            if not elem.tail or not elem.tail.strip():
                elem.tail = i

            for child in elem:
                cls._indent(child, level + 1)

            if len(elem) > 0:
                last_child = elem[-1]
                if not last_child.tail or not last_child.tail.strip():
                    last_child.tail = i

        else:
            if level and (not elem.tail or not elem.tail.strip()):
                elem.tail = i

exporter_cls = XmlExporter

Available at examples/custom_exporters/xml_exporter.py.

The module must expose an exporter_cls object referencing the exporter class.

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CLI Options

Option	Description
input_dir	Root directory to scan for files.
output_path	Output directory where the tool writes merger.<ext> (default: current directory).
-e, --exporter	Output exporter strategy (e.g., TREE_PLAIN_TEXT, PLAIN_TEXT, JSON, XML).
-i, --install	Install a custom module (parser or exporter).
-u, --uninstall	Uninstall a module by ID (* removes all modules including parsers and exporters).
-l, --list	List all installed custom modules.
--ignore	One or more ignore patterns (see Ignore Pattern Syntax).
--merger-ignore	File containing ignore patterns (default: ./merger.ignore).
-c, --create-ignore	Create a merger.ignore file using a built-in template (e.g., DEFAULT, PYTHON).
--version	Show installed version.
--log-level	Set logging verbosity.

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License

This project is licensed under the GPLv3 License — see LICENSE for details.