Installation

Just pip install ningen (or the equivalent in whatever Python environment you are using).

Usage

The Writer class is similar to the one in ninja_syntax. Two additional utility functions are provided: foreach for iterating on all combinations of several variables, possibly extracting them from existing file names; and expand for generating formatted strings using all the variable combinations.

For example:

import ningen as ng

# Similarly to ninja_syntax writer, but internally buffers everything:
writer = ng.Writer()

modes = ['debug', 'release']
objects = []
writer.rule('compile_debug', ...)
writer.rule('compile_release', ...)

# Ningen provides the "foreach" function,
# which iterates on existing files and/or variable values:
for c in ng.foreach('src/{*name}.cc', mode=modes):
    objects.append(name)
    writer.build(f'obj/{c.mode}/{c.name}.o', f'compile_{c.mode}',
                 inputs=[c.path, ...], ...)

# Since it buffers the data, ningen allows overriding previous build statements:
writer.rule('special_compile_debug', ...)
writer.build('obj/debug/special.o', 'special_compile_gcc',
             inputs=['src/special.cc', ...], ..., override=True)

# Ningen also provides the "expand" function which formats multiple strings:
for mode in modes:
    writer.build('bin/{mode}/program', f'link_{mode}',
                 inputs=ng.expand('obj/{mode}/{object}.o',
                                  mode=mode, object=objects))

# Actually write the buffered ninja build file (by default, to "build.ninja"):
writer.write()