File::Corresponding - Find corresponding files in the directory tree

In a source tree it is common to have files with the same name, but in different places in the directory tree. A typical MVC application could look something like this:

 Book       lib/Controller/Book.pm
 Borrower   lib/Controller/Borrower.pm
 Book       lib/Model/Schema/Book.pm
 Borrower   lib/Model/Schema/Borrower.pm
 Book       lib/root/templates/Book.t
 Borrower   lib/root/templates/Borrower.t
 Book       lib/t/controller-book.t
 Borrower   lib/t/controller-borrower.t
 Book       lib/t/model-schema-book.t
 Borrower   lib/t/model-schema-borrower.t

Here we clearly have two types of things; a Book and a Borrower.

The Controller/Book.pm, Model/Schema/Book.pm, root/templates/Book.t, t/controller-book.t, and t/model-schema-book.t represent different aspects of the same Book entity; they correspond to each other.

Since the files belong to each other it is useful for the programmer to easily navigate between them.

This module helps with that.

Given a config file .corresponding_file in the current directory or your $HOME directory:

  ---
  file_groups:
    -
      name: All MyApp classes
      file_profiles:
        -
          name: Cat Controller
          regex: / Controller . (\w+) \.pm $ /x
          sprintf: Controller/%s.pm
        -
          name: DBIC Schema
          regex: "|Model/Schema.(\w+)\.pm$|"
          sprintf: Model/Schema/%s.pm
        -
          name: Template
          regex: /root.template.(\w+)\.pm$/
          sprintf: root/template/%s.pm

  $ corresponding_file Controller/Book.pm
  Model/Schema/Book.pm
  $ cd ..
  $ corresponding_file lib/Controller/Book.pm
  lib/Model/Schema/Book.pm

Emacs

Devel::PerlySense has a feature "Go to Project's Other Files" for navigating to related files.

Actually, it doesn't yet. But it will.

By using File::Corresponding as a library, you can use the resulting File::Corresponding::File::Found objects to display more information than just the file name.

File::Corresponding uses a configuration of groups of File Profiles to identify corresponding files.

Using a .corresponding_file config file, and the command line script corresponding_file, you can easily look up corresponding files.

It's obviously better if you let your editor do the tedious bits for you, like passing the file name to the script, letting you choose which of the corresponding files you meant, and opening the file in the editor.

That's left as an exercise for the reader (well you are a programmer, aren't you?).

Study the SYNOPSIS example.

A File Profile for e.g. "Controller" files includes a regex to match a Controller file name with e.g. "Book" in it, and a sprintf string template to render any found files with "Book" in them as a Controller file.

Regex definitions are whatever comes after "qr" in e.g. qr/file.pm/i, i.e. "/file.pm/i". As you can see, you can use regex modifiers, and even use other delimiters (which is handy, since you're likely to match "/").

The regex should match the intended file. The first capturing parenthesis must contain the entity file fragmen that is common to all files in the group.

The sprintf string should contain a %s to fill in the captured file fragment from any other File Profile in the Group.

Only existing files are reported.

Johan Lindström, <johanl[ÄT]DarSerMan.com>

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-file-corresponding@rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=File-Corresponding. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

Currently File::Corresponding supports the simple case in the SYNOPSIS above, where the Controller/Book.pm can easily be translated to Model/Schema/Book.pm. It does not yet support the more complicated translation from Controller/Book.pm to t/controller-book.t and back.

Copyright 2007 Johan Lindström, All Rights Reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Failures will result in a die.

Group config objects.

Find files corresponding to $file (given the config in ->profile_groups) and return found @files.

If the same file is found via many Groups, it will be reported once per group (so if you only use this to display the file name, make sure to unique the file names).

Load yaml $config_file, or die with an error message.