Is there a way to set a folder's contents to be included in each problem?

[masters3d]

I am working on a new track but each exercise its going to have at least 2 duplicated files which I rather have somewhere else for easier updating.

bobExample.ts
bob.test.ts
package.json // Same in every problem 
tsconfig.json // Same in every problem
tslint.json // Same in every problem

Is there a way to have a folder which contents always gets included in each exercise?

[petertseng]

Ah, you know, at Haskell we would greatly enjoy if symlinks were to work. We have a file stack.yaml which is the same in every single exercise. We want to have it only once, instead of duplicated 76 times (once per exercise).

They would work if not for exercism/DEPRECATED.trackler#13

And in general, I will advise to use symlinks for this purpose:

• to avoid reinventing the wheel by adding some extra code to treating some directory specially
• since it is likely people with the repo checked out locally will want the files to be in the exercise directories as well!

[masters3d]

symlinks sounds like the perfect solution.

[petertseng]

I wanted to see who else might benefit. The list is last updated on 2017-04-24, trackler version 2.1.0.0.

c

• 34/34 exercises all have the same test/vendor/unity.c
• 34/34 exercises all have the same test/vendor/unity.h
• 34/34 exercises all have the same test/vendor/unity_internals.h

cpp

• 35/35 exercises all have the same CMakeLists.txt
• 5/35 exercises all have the same require_equal_containers.h

csharp

• 2/104 exercises all have the same HINTS.md
• 2/104 exercises all have the same HINTS.md
• 3/104 exercises all have the same HINTS.md
• 2/104 exercises all have the same HINTS.md

ecmascript

• 66/66 exercises all have the same gulpfile.js
• 66/66 exercises all have the same package.json

elm

• 30/30 exercises all have the same elm-package.json
• 30/30 exercises all have the same package.json

erlang

• 36/36 exercises all have the same include/exercism.hrl
• 33/36 exercises all have the same rebar.config

fsharp

• 5/104 exercises all have the same HINTS.md

haskell

• 81/81 exercises all have the same stack.yaml
• 2/81 exercises all have the same HINTS.md

haxe

• 2/2 exercises all have the same .munit
• 2/2 exercises all have the same test/TestMain.hx
• 2/2 exercises all have the same test.hxml

java

• 56/69 exercises all have the same build.gradle
• 4/69 exercises all have the same build.gradle
• 3/69 exercises all have the same build.gradle
• 4/69 exercises all have the same build.gradle
• 2/69 exercises all have the same src/example/java/.keep
• 37/69 exercises all have the same src/main/java/.keep
• 3/69 exercises all have the same src/test/java/.keep

kotlin

• 42/46 exercises all have the same build.gradle
• 41/46 exercises all have the same src/main/kotlin/.keep

lfe

• 31/31 exercises all have the same .gitignore
• 31/31 exercises all have the same Makefile
• 31/31 exercises all have the same rebar.config
• 30/31 exercises all have the same rebar.lock

ocaml

• 29/38 exercises all have the same .merlin
• 2/38 exercises all have the same .merlin
• 3/38 exercises all have the same .merlin
• 32/38 exercises all have the same Makefile

powershell

• 2/2 exercises all have the same .version

ruby

• 11/86 exercises all have the same .meta/.version
• 3/86 exercises all have the same .meta/.version
• 7/86 exercises all have the same .meta/.version
• 11/86 exercises all have the same .meta/.version
• 4/86 exercises all have the same .meta/.version

rust

• 47/55 exercises all have the same .gitignore
• 8/55 exercises all have the same .gitignore
• 2/55 exercises all have the same example.rs
• 43/55 exercises all have the same src/lib.rs

scala

• 51/82 exercises all have the same build.sbt
• 8/82 exercises all have the same build.sbt
• 12/82 exercises all have the same build.sbt
• 3/82 exercises all have the same build.sbt
• 2/82 exercises all have the same build.sbt
• 67/82 exercises all have the same src/main/scala/.keep

swift

• 75/75 exercises all have the same .gitignore

typescript

• 18/18 exercises all have the same package.json
• 18/18 exercises all have the same tsconfig.json
• 18/18 exercises all have the same tslint.json
• 18/18 exercises all have the same yarn.lock

[stkent]

Ideally all Java exercises will eventually have the same base build.gradle file. If we really need customization, we could apply from: an optional extension Gradle file on a per-exercise basis. Sort of like a template method for builds!

[NobbZ]

31 exercises all have the same rebar.conf

Which is a mistake that I have to address, they should differ in at least one line.

[NobbZ]

Okay... It was necessary to make them identical in that process. So yes I would be glad if sim linking would work out of the box.

[NobbZ]

Since I had to reboot... How would contributors using Windows be able to create a simlink when they want to add an exercise?

[masters3d]

I don't use Windows so I don't know how realiable sym links are in windows.

[masters3d]

How about just implementing a quick script to copy files from a common directory?

// Makefile

all: replacePackageFileFromCommonToSubFolders

copyPackageFilesToSubFolder:
	@cp -a /common/. exercises/$(ASSIGNMENT)/

replacePackageFileFromCommonToSubFolders:
	@for assignment in $(ASSIGNMENTS); do ASSIGNMENT=$$assignment $(MAKE) copyPackageFilesToSubFolder || exit 1; done

[petertseng]

Well, sure. In that case, since no coordination is required cross-track (we don't need trackler+RubyGems to ensure that symlinks work, nor do we need to agree on a global directory), then each track can handle their own scripting. Then we do not particularly need to discuss anything other than best practices for doing that. For what it's worth, maybe I'll use a shell script.

[masters3d]

@petertseng I was thinking for the tracker just to copy the files from a directory like common instead of trying to get symlinks to work which seems a little more involved and perhaps not portable

[petertseng]

I was thinking for the tracker just to copy the files from a directory like common

So if trackler does it when serving the files to the student on exercism fetch - what will we do for the people who wish to check out the repository locally? Will they have to copy the files through some other means?

[masters3d]

This is a good point. I don't have a good solution. My issue with Typescript track is that I don't have a way to import the example with out breaking the test file. In Swift I don't worry about it because it's a package base system so the file doesn't matter just the type. In Objc I can use a macro but not in JS or Typescript.

#if __has_include("AcronymExample.h")
# import "AcronymExample.h"
# else
# import "Acronym.h"
#endif