Version 0.1 of SpiralWeb is available for download at http://pypi.python.org/pypi/spiralweb/0.1. To install, make sure that you have Python and pip, then run pip install spiralweb to download and install. The project home page can be found at https://gitorious.org/spiralweb.

About SpiralWeb

SpiralWeb is a Literate Programming system written in Python. Its primary aims are to facilitate the usage of literate programming in real-world applications by using light weight text-based markup systems (rather than TeX or LaTeX) and painlessly integrating into build scripts. It is language agnostic. The default type-setter is Pandoc’s extended markdown, but new backends can be readily added for any other system desired.

For more information on literate programming, please see literateprogramming.com.

Usage

The syntax is minimal:

@doc (Name)? ([option=value,option2=value2...])?

Denotes a document chunk. At the moment, the only option that is used is the out parameter, which specifies a path (either absolutely or relative to the literate file it appears in) for the woven output to be written to.

@code (Name)? ([option=value,option2=value2...])?

Denotes the beginning of a code chunk. At present, the following options are used:

  • out which specifies a path (either absolutely or relative to the literate file it appears in) for the tangled output to be written to.
  • lang which specifies a language that the code is written in. This attribute is not used except in the weaver, which uses it when emitting markup, so that the code can be highlighted properly.

@

Within a code chunk, this indicates that another chunk will be inserted at this point in the final source code. It is important to note that SpiralWeb is indentation-sensitive, so any preceding spaces or tabs before the reference will be used as the indentation for every line in the chunks output--even if there is also indentation in the chunk.

@@

At any spot in a literate file, this directive results in a simple @ symbol.