About

The pyp application functions similar to how PHP functions, except it uses python and is designed for stand-alone file processing.

Arbitrary python code can be placed in <? python_code; ?> tags, and then running pyp input.txt output.txt will process the input file into a new output file.

Required software

python – currently built for 2.7 and 3.4; both x86 and x64

Downloads

Current downloads are for Windows, and work on Windows 7 x86/x64.
Note: rename the file you download to pyp.exe for ease of use.

For python 2.7: x86 | x64 – compiled using python 2.7.8, Visual Studio 2008
For python 3.4: x86 | x64 – compiled using python 3.4.1, Visual Studio 2010

For extra build versions, check out the bin directory

Tag syntax

There are two forms of tags that can be used: execution tags and evaluation tags.

execution tags
These tags execute a block of code; the code is written as any python script would be written.
Code appears in <? ?> tags.
evaluation tags
These tags evaluate an expression and output the result if it's a string. The code is written like an eval expression in python.
Code appears in <?= ?> tags.

Tag continuations

Tag continuations are used to turn text content outside of tag blocks into a string to be used in an expression. They can be used with both execution tags and evaluation tags.

Tag continuations are formed by adding an ellipsis ... to the starting/ending tags surrounding the content to be stringified. For example, the following are identical:

<? use_code( ...?>convert this to a string<?... ); ?>
<? use_code("convert this to a string"); ?>

There can also be nested tags, albeit not usually necessary:

<? use_code( ...?>convert <?="this"?> to a string<?... ); ?>
<? use_code( ...?>convert this to a string<?... ); ?>
<? use_code("convert this to a string"); ?>

Invalid, mismatched, or differing type tag continuations will all result in an error.

pyp module

For code evaluation, a python variable called pyp is added into the global scope. It represents a module which has two functions: write and include.

pyp.write(content) : None
Write a string to the internal output buffer. This should be used in place of any print or sys.stdout.write statements, as they still direct to the default stdout.
TypeError is thrown if an invalid value is passed.
pyp.include(filename) : None
Includes another pyp formatted file into the current file. It may be beneficial to use the import statement instead.
Several unlikely exceptions can be thrown (given in python2/python3 forms):
TypeError / TypeError : an invalid value was passed
MemoryError / MemoryError : ran out of memory
IOError / PermissionError : input read or output write error
IOError / FileNotFoundError : specified filename was not found

Command line

The pyp command line is simple and provides a few customization options. The basic style of the command line can be one of the following:

		pyp <args> INPUT.txt OUTPUT.txt

		pyp <args> -iINPUT.txt -oOUTPUT.txt

		pyp <args> -i INPUT.txt -o OUTPUT.txt

		pyp <args> --input INPUT.txt --output OUTPUT.txt

Command line arguments

Additional info can be obtained by executing pyp --usage.

--input <path> – Specify the input filename
If path is "-", stdin is used.
--output <path> – Specify the output filename
If path is "-", stdout is used.
--read-block-size <size> – The size (in characters) of a file read block; default is 10240
--read-block-count <count> – The initial number of read blocks to cycle between; default is 2
This is used for state rollback, in case the previous state is no longer in the current active read block
--no-continuations – Disables tag continuations
--inline-errors – Inlines errors into the output file instead of stderr
--inline-error-modifer <method> – Method of modifying error messages when they are inlined
For example, if inlined into a HTML file, you may want special characters to be replaced. (example: "<" to "<")
Available values are "html" and "none".
--encoding <mode> – Method of encoding unicode values into byte values
Available values can be found here; default is "utf-8"
--encoding-errors <mode> – Method dealing with encoding errors
Available values can be found here; default is "strict"