c_template

Info • Install • Usage • License

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Info

General

This is my opinionated template for initializing, building, and maintaining C projects. Batteries included - powered by a tiny suite of python tools. Set up to be quick and easy to use on both MacOS and Linux.

Important

This template is set up specifically for me. If adopting this system yourself: expect to do bit of extra setup.

Features

• Ultra portable
• Bundled build-system (run.py)
• Bundled tool for snapshot tests (bark.py)
• Bundled tool for embedding static files (not essential for c23) (bedh.py)
• Project environment variables (inspired by uv and cargo)

Requirements

• Unix system
• GCC or Clang
• Python (3.10+)

Install

There is no installation in the traditional sense; just add these two functions into your .bashrc (or an equivalent file in your shell path) and you're good to go.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

run() {
    local dir="$(pwd)"
    while [[ "$dir" != "$HOME" ]]; do
        if [[ -f "$dir/run.py" ]]; then
            (cd "$dir" && ./run.py "$@")
            return
        fi
        dir="$(dirname "$dir")"
    done
    echo "no project root found" >&2
    return 1
}

cinit() {
    set -x
    local _cinit_dst="$(pwd)"
    file="init.py"
    curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/simon-danielsson/c_template/refs/heads/main/"$file" || {
        echo "failed to curl $file" >&2
        exit 1
    }
    curl -L https://github.com/simon-danielsson/c_template/archive/refs/heads/main.tar.gz \
    | tar -xz --strip-components=1 c_template-main/cinit_temp
    chmod +x ./"$file"
    ./"$file" $1 "$2"
    command rm "$file"
    command rm -rf cinit_temp
    cd "$_cinit_dst"/"$1"/tests
    curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/simon-danielsson/bark.py/refs/heads/main/bark.py || {
        echo "failed to curl bark.py" >&2
        exit 1
    }
    chmod +x bark.py
    mkdir -p "$_cinit_dst"/"$1"/src/static
    cd "$_cinit_dst"/"$1"/src/static
    curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/simon-danielsson/bedh.py/refs/heads/main/bedh.py || {
        echo "failed to curl bedh.py" >&2
        exit 1
    }
    chmod +x bedh.py
    set +x
    cd "$_cinit_dst"/"$1"

    # git
    git init -b main
    git add --all
    git commit -m init
    git tag v0.1.0

    cd "$_cinit_dst"
}

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Usage

Creating a new project

Run cinit with the name of your new project as an argument. A new project folder will be created in the current directory. (You can also add an optional project description enclosed in double quotes - this will then be added to the generated README file.)

cinit <project-name> ["description"]

The generated project will have the following hierarchy:

(root)
├── .clangd
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── run.py
├── src
│  ├── main.c
│  ├── main.h
│  └── static
│     └── bedh.py
└── tests
   ├── bark.py
   ├── bark_test
   ├── tests.c
   └── tests.h

Running tests

Tests are ran using a bundled copy of bark.py - for more information, visit its page on github and read more about it there.

CLI commands (run.py)

run help
run debug
run release
run install

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.