dotdrop/docs/config/usage-transformations.md

• Use transformations
• Arguments and templating
• Examples

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Note: any transformation with a key starting with an underscore (_) won't be shown in output. This can be useful when working with sensitive data containing passwords for example.

Use transformations

There are two types of transformations available:

• read transformations: used to transform dotfiles before they are installed (Config key trans_read)

  • Used for commands install and compare
  • They have two arguments:
    • {0} will be replaced with the dotfile to process
    • {1} will be replaced with a temporary file to store the result of the transformation
  • Happens before the dotfile is templated with jinja2 (see templating)

• write transformations: used to transform files before updating a dotfile (Config key trans_write)

  • Used for command update
  • They have two arguments:
    • {0} will be replaced with the file path to update the dotfile with
    • {1} will be replaced with a temporary file to store the result of the transformation

A typical use-case for transformations is when dotfiles need to be stored encrypted or compressed. For more see below examples.

Note that transformations cannot be used if the dotfiles is to be linked (when link: link or link: link_children).

Arguments and templating

Transformations also support additional positional arguments that must start from 2 (since {0} and {1} are added automatically). The transformations itself as well as its arguments can also be templated.

For example

trans_read:
  targ: echo "$(basename {0}); {{@@ _dotfile_key @@}}; {2}; {3}" > {1}
dotfiles:
  f_abc:
    dst: /tmp/abc
    src: abc
    trans_read: targ "{{@@ profile @@}}" lastarg
profiles:
  p1:
    dotfiles:
    - f_abc

will result in abc; f_abc; p1; lastarg

Examples

See

• Store compressed directories
• Sensitive dotfiles