Generating files¶

sbt provides standard hooks for adding source or resource generation tasks.

A source generation task should generate sources in a subdirectory of sourceManaged and return a sequence of files generated. The key to add the task to is called sourceGenerators. It should be scoped according to whether the generated files are main (Compile) or test (Test) sources. This basic structure looks like:

sourceGenerators in Compile <+= <your Task[Seq[File]] here>

For example, assuming a method def makeSomeSources(base: File): Seq[File],

sourceGenerators in Compile <+= sourceManaged in Compile map { outDir: File =>
  makeSomeSources(outDir / "demo")
}

As a specific example, the following generates a hello world source file:

sourceGenerators in Compile <+= sourceManaged in Compile map { dir =>
  val file = dir / "demo" / "Test.scala"
  IO.write(file, """object Test extends App { println("Hi") }""")
  Seq(file)
}

Executing 'run' will print "Hi". Change Compile to Test to make it a test source. For efficiency, you would only want to generate sources when necessary and not every run.

By default, generated sources are not included in the packaged source artifact. To do so, add them as you would other mappings. See Adding files to a package. A source generator can return both Java and Scala sources mixed together in the same sequence. They will be distinguished by their extension later.

A resource generation task should generate resources in a subdirectory of resourceManaged and return a sequence of files generated. The key to add the task to is called resourceGenerators. It should be scoped according to whether the generated files are main (Compile) or test (Test) resources. This basic structure looks like:

resourceGenerators in Compile <+= <your Task[Seq[File]] here>

For example, assuming a method def makeSomeResources(base: File): Seq[File],

resourceGenerators in Compile <+= resourceManaged in Compile map { outDir: File =>
  makeSomeResources(outDir / "demo")
}

As a specific example, the following generates a properties file containing the application name and version:

resourceGenerators in Compile <+=
  (resourceManaged in Compile, name, version) map { (dir, n, v) =>
    val file = dir / "demo" / "myapp.properties"
    val contents = "name=%s\nversion=%s".format(n,v)
    IO.write(file, contents)
    Seq(file)
  }
}

Change Compile to Test to make it a test resource. Normally, you would only want to generate resources when necessary and not every run.

By default, generated resources are not included in the packaged source artifact. To do so, add them as you would other mappings. See Adding files to a package.