• In order to
  • understand how the plug-in works
  • properly use the plug-in in my project
• As a
  • plug-in user that is totally new to the plug-in
• I want
  • some generic enough examples in the doc that I can copy paste in my pom that will reasonably work out of the box.

Examples to be included

• Generation of .java classes and their inclusion with the helper-plugin.
• Generation of resources file and their inclusion with the helper-plugin.
• Generation of files with "one-context-per-row" strategy.
• Generation of files with "one-context-per-file" strategy.
• Generation of files with "one-context-per-tag" strategy.
• An example about using meta data.

In order to write a more effective template
as a plug-in user
I want the metadata of a row to contain the "isLast" attribute.

Rationale

Instead of writing...

${row.data.Country.replace(' ','_')}("${row.data.Code}", "${row.data.Continent}")#if( ${row.meta.count} == ${source.rows.size()} );#else,#end

would not it be better to write something as...

${row.data.Country.replace(' ','_')}("${row.data.Code}", "${row.data.Continent}")#if( ${row.meta.last} );#else,#end

...?

In order to type less,
plug-in user
wants the "generate" goal attached to a default phase

Ideas

• Maybe the generate-sources phase ?

• In order to
  • easily understand what the plug-in is doing while I check the mvn log
• As a
  • plug-in user
• I want
  • the log to contain a reasonable amount of info.

• In order to
  • easily understand what info I can reference in the template file
  • switch easily from one context mode to another
• As a
  • plug-in user that should manage differen templates
• I want
  • the data model exposed to a template to be always the same
  • regardless of the context mode.

Ideas

The structure of the model could well be this one:

{
    "rows": [
        {
            "data": {
                "field-1": "value-of-header-1-in-row-1",
                "field-2": "value-of-header-2-in-row-1",
                "field-n": "value-of-header-n-in-row-1"
            },
            "meta": {
                "rowIndex": "0",
                "rowCount": "1",
                "sourceIndex": "0-based-index-of-row-1-in-the-source-file",
                "sourceCount": "1-based-index-of-row-1-in-the-source-file"
            }
        },
        {
            "data": {
                "field-1": "value-of-header-1-in-row-2",
                "field-2": "value-of-header-2-in-row-2",
                "field-n": "value-of-header-n-in-row-2"
            },
            "meta": {
                "rowIndex": "1",
                "rowCount": "2",
                "sourceIndex": "0-based-index-of-row-2-in-the-source-file",
                "sourceCount": "1-based-index-of-row-2-in-the-source-file"
            }
        },
        {
            "data": {
                "field-1": "value-of-header-1-in-row-m",
                "field-2": "value-of-header-2-in-row-m",
                "field-n": "value-of-header-n-in-row-m"
            },
            "meta": {
                "rowIndex": "m-1",
                "rowCount": "m",
                "sourceIndex": "0-based-index-of-row-m-in-the-source-file",
                "sourceCount": "1-based-index-of-row-m-in-the-source-file"
            }
        }  
    ],
    "meta": {
        "template" : {
            "path" : "<path-to-the-template-file>",
            "name" : "<name-of-template-file>"
        },
        "source" : {
            "path": "<path-to-the-csv-file>",
            "name": "<name-of-csv-file>"
        },
        "target" : {
            "path": "<path-to-the-generated-file>",
            "name": "<name-of-generated-file>"            
        },
        "count" : {
            "rows": "<total-number-of-rows>",
            "lastIndex": "<0-based-index-of-last-row>"
        },
        "tags": [ "<tag-1>", "<tag-2>", "<tag-n>"]
    }
}

Filter to exclude CSV rows from the context passed to the template engine.

User should be able to read meaningful examples to understand how to use the plugin.

In order to use the plugin in a more effective way
as a plugin user
I want the error message in case I use an unknown mode to be more descriptive.

Rationale

I got this error running the plgin...

$ mvn clean generate-sources
Cannot convert 'ONE_CONTEXT_PER_ROW' to Enum: No enum constant com.danidemi.templategeneratormavenplugin.maven.GenerateMojo.ContextMode.ONE_CONTEXT_PER_ROW

...now, am I allowed to know which are the enum constants without being forced to check the doc or the source ?

To avoid messing up with large csv file and complex template
as a busy developer
I'd like the plugin to warn me if a row from the CSV is going to generate a target file that was previously generated from another row.

Rationale

Let's suppose I've wronlgy set up the generation mode to ONE_CONTEXT_PER_LINE and I set a FileNameTemplate that makes to different rows to match the same file. Wouldn't it be better in this case to stop the generation saying that we are going to generate a file that was already generated ?

• In order to
  • speed up the generation of sources
• As a
  • plug-in user that has to run multiple times mvn generate-sources
• I want
  • that plug-in does not recreate target files if both template and csv didn't change since last generation.

Ideas

• The template file has a "last modified date".
• The CSV file has a "last modified date".
• The generated file has a "creation date". If that creation date is later than both template and CSV it means it is up to date.
• When the template or the CSV files have a bigger date it means they have been modfied after the generation, so the generated file should be probably regenerated.

User should be able to set a "filter" to select which rows of the CSV are passed as context to the template engine.