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<h1 class="title">Organizing snippets</h1>
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<a title="" href="index.html">Intro and tutorial</a>
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<a title="" href="snippet-organization.html">Howto: organize</a>
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<a title="" href="snippet-expansion.html">Howto: expand</a>
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<a title="" href="snippet-development.html">Howto: write </a>
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<p>
<b>Important:</b> This documentation applies to
the <b>SVN trunk</b> of YASnippet, which you
get <a href="http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/source/checkout">here</a>. Documentation
for other versions can be found <a title=""
href="http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/downloads/list">here</a>.
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<div class="contents topic" id="contents">
<p class="topic-title first">Contents</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#loading-snippets" id="id3">Loading snippets</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#id2" id="id4">Organizing snippets</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#nested-organization" id="id5">Nested organization</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-yas-parents-file" id="id6">The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-parents</span></tt> file</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-yas-make-groups-file" id="id7">The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-make-groups</span></tt> file</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#using-plain-file-names" id="id8">Using plain file names</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#yasnippet-bundle" id="id9">YASnippet bundle</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#customizable-variables" id="id10">Customizable variables</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#yas-root-directory" id="id11"><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/root-directory</span></tt></a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#yas-ignore-filenames-as-triggers" id="id12"><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/ignore-filenames-as-triggers</span></tt></a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section" id="loading-snippets">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id3">Loading snippets</a></h1>
<p>Snippet definitions are stored in files in the filesystem. Unless you
use the simpler <a class="reference external" href="mailto:index.html@installation">bundle version</a>), these
are arranged so that YASnippet can load them into <em>snippet
tables</em>. The triggering mechanisms (see <a class="reference external" href="snippet-expansion.html">Expanding snippets</a>) will
look up these snippet tables and (hopefully) expand the snippet you
intended.</p>
<p>The non-bundle version of YASnippet, once unpacked, comes with a full
directory of snippets, which you can copy somewhere and use. You can
also create or download more directories.</p>
<p>Once these directories are in place reference them in the variable
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/root-directory</span></tt> and load them with <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/load-directory</span></tt>:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span style="color: #408080; font-style: italic">;; Develop and keep personal snippets under ~/emacs.d/mysnippets</span>
(<span style="color: #008000; font-weight: bold">setq</span> <span style="color: #19177C">yas/root-directory</span> <span style="color: #BA2121">"~/emacs.d/mysnippets"</span>)
<span style="color: #408080; font-style: italic">;; Load the snippets</span>
(<span style="color: #19177C">yas/load-directory</span> <span style="color: #19177C">yas/root-directory</span>)
</pre></div>
<p>The point in using <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/root-directory</span></tt> (as opposed to calling
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/load-directory</span></tt> directly) is considering "~/emacs.d/mysnippets"
for snippet development, so you can use commands like
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/new-snippet</span></tt> and others described in section <a class="reference external" href="snippet-development.html">Writing
Snippets</a>.</p>
<p>You can make this variable a list and store more items into it:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span style="color: #408080; font-style: italic">;; Develop in ~/emacs.d/mysnippets, but also</span>
<span style="color: #408080; font-style: italic">;; try out snippets in ~/Downloads/interesting-snippets</span>
(<span style="color: #008000; font-weight: bold">setq</span> <span style="color: #19177C">yas/root-directory</span> <span style="color: #666666">'</span>(<span style="color: #BA2121">"~/emacs.d/mysnippets"</span>
<span style="color: #BA2121">"~/Downloads/interesting-snippets"</span>))
<span style="color: #408080; font-style: italic">;; Map `yas/load-directory' to every element</span>
(<span style="color: #008000">mapc</span> <span style="color: #19177C">'yas/load-directory</span> <span style="color: #19177C">yas/root-directory</span>)
</pre></div>
<p>In this last example, the all the directories are loaded and their
snippets considered for expansion. However development still happens
in the first element, "~/emacs.d/mysnippets".</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="id2">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id4">Organizing snippets</a></h1>
<p>Once you've setup <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/root-directory</span></tt> , you can store snippets
inside sub-directories of these directories.</p>
<p>Snippet definitions are put in plain text files. They are arranged by
sub-directories, and the snippet tables are named after these directories.</p>
<p>The name corresponds to the Emacs mode where you want expansion to
take place. For example, snippets for <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">c-mode</span></tt> are put in the
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">c-mode</span></tt> sub-directory. You can also skip snippet storage altogether
and use the bundle (see <a class="reference internal" href="#yasnippet-bundle">YASnippet bundle</a>).</p>
<div class="section" id="nested-organization">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id5">Nested organization</a></h2>
<p>Here is an excerpt of a directory hierarchy containing snippets
for some modes:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre>$ tree
.
`-- text-mode
|-- cc-mode
| |-- c-mode
| | `-- printf
| |-- for
| |-- java-mode
| | `-- println
| `-- while
|-- email
|-- perl-mode
| |-- cperl-mode
| `-- for
`-- time
</pre></div>
<p>A parent directory acts as a <em>parent table</em> of any of its
sub-directories. This is one of the ways different Emacs major modes
can share snippet definitions. As you can see above, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">c-mode</span></tt> and
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">java-mode</span></tt> share the same parent <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">cc-mode</span></tt> and its <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">while</span></tt>
snipepts, while all modes are share the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">time</span></tt> snippet from
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">text-mode</span></tt>.</p>
<p>This can be also used to as an <em>alias</em> -- <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">cperl-mode</span></tt> is an empty
directory whose parent is <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">perl-mode</span></tt>.</p>
<img align="right" alt="images/menu-parent.png" class="align-right" src="images/menu-parent.png" />
</div>
<div class="section" id="the-yas-parents-file">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id6">The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-parents</span></tt> file</a></h2>
<p>An alternate (and preferred) way of setting up parent tables consists
of placing a plain text file <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-parents</span></tt> inside one of the
sub-directories. By doing this, you avoid complex directory
nesting. In the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-parents</span></tt> file you just write
whitespace-separated names of modes. This allows more flexibility and
readability of your snippet hierarchy.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre>$ tree
.
|-- c-mode
| |-- .yas-parents # contains "cc-mode text-mode"
| `-- printf
|-- cc-mode
| |-- for
| `-- while
|-- java-mode
| |-- .yas-parents # contains "cc-mode text-mode"
| `-- println
`-- text-mode
|-- email
`-- time
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="the-yas-make-groups-file">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id7">The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-make-groups</span></tt> file</a></h2>
<img align="right" alt="images/menu-groups.png" class="align-right" src="images/menu-groups.png" />
<p>If you place an empty plain text file <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-make-groups</span></tt> inside one
of the mode directories, the names of these sub-directories are
considered groups of snippets and <a class="reference external" href="snippet-menu.html">The YASnippet Menu</a> is organized
much more cleanly, as you can see in the image.</p>
<p>Another alternative way to achieve this is to place a <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">#</span> <span class="pre">group:</span></tt>
directive inside the snippet definition. See <a class="reference external" href="snippet-development.html">Writing Snippets</a>.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre>$ tree ruby-mode/
ruby-mode/
|-- .yas-make-groups
|-- collections
| |-- each
| `-- ...
|-- control structure
| |-- forin
| `-- ...
|-- definitions
| `-- ...
`-- general
`-- ...
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="using-plain-file-names">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id8">Using plain file names</a></h2>
<p>Normally, file names act as the snippet expansion <em>abbreviation</em> (also
known as the <em>snippet key</em> or <em>snippet trigger</em>, see <a class="reference external" href="snippet-expansion.html">Expanding
Snippets</a>).</p>
<p>However, if you customize the variable
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/ignore-filenames-as-triggers</span></tt> to be true <em>or</em> place an empty
file <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.yas-ignore-filename-triggers</span></tt> you can use much more
descriptive file names. This is useful if many snippets within a mode
share the same trigger key.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre>$ tree rails-mode/
rails-mode/
|-- .yas-make-groups
|-- .yas-ignore-filename-triggers
|-- Insert ERb's <% __ %> or <%= __ %>.yasnippet
|-- asserts
| |-- assert(var = assigns(%3Avar)).yasnippet
| |-- assert_difference.yasnippet
| |-- assert_no_difference.yasnippet
| |-- assert_redirected_to (nested path plural).yasnippet
| |-- assert_redirected_to (nested path).yasnippet
| |-- assert_redirected_to (path plural).yasnippet
| |-- assert_redirected_to (path).yasnippet
| |-- assert_rjs.yasnippet
| `-- assert_select.yasnippet
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="yasnippet-bundle">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id9">YASnippet bundle</a></h1>
<p>The most convenient way to define snippets for YASnippet is to put
them in a directory arranged by the mode and use
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/load-directory</span></tt> to load them.</p>
<p>However, this might slow down the Emacs start-up speed if you have many
snippets. You can use <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/define-snippets</span></tt> to define a bunch of
snippets for a particular mode in an Emacs-lisp file.</p>
<p>Since this is hard to maintain, there's a better way: define your
snippets in directory and then call <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">M-x</span> <span class="pre">yas/compile-bundle</span></tt> to
compile it into a bundle file when you modified your snippets.</p>
<p>The release bundle of YASnippet is produced by
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/compile-bundle</span></tt>. The bundle uses <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/define-snippets</span></tt> to
define snippets. This avoids the IO and parsing overhead when loading
snippets.</p>
<p>Further more, the generated bundle is a stand-alone file not depending
on <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yasnippet.el</span></tt>. The released bundles of YASnippet are all
generated this way.</p>
<p>See the internal documentation for these functions</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">M-x</span> <span class="pre">describe-function</span> <span class="pre">RET</span> <span class="pre">yas/define-snippets</span> <span class="pre">RET</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">M-x</span> <span class="pre">describe-function</span> <span class="pre">RET</span> <span class="pre">yas/compile-bundle</span> <span class="pre">RET</span></tt>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section" id="customizable-variables">
<h1><a class="toc-backref" href="#id10">Customizable variables</a></h1>
<div class="section" id="yas-root-directory">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id11"><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/root-directory</span></tt></a></h2>
<p>Root directory that stores the snippets for each major mode.</p>
<p>If you set this from your .emacs, can also be a list of strings,
for multiple root directories. If you make this a list, the first
element is always the user-created snippets directory. Other
directories are used for bulk reloading of all snippets using
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/reload-all</span></tt></p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="yas-ignore-filenames-as-triggers">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id12"><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">yas/ignore-filenames-as-triggers</span></tt></a></h2>
<p>If non-nil, don't derive tab triggers from filenames.</p>
<p>This means a snippet without a <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">#</span> <span class="pre">key:</span></tt> directive wont have a tab
trigger.</p>
<!-- LocalWords: html YASnippet filesystem yas sourcecode setq mapc printf perl -->
<!-- LocalWords: println cperl forin filenames filename ERb's yasnippet Avar el -->
<!-- LocalWords: rjs RET -->
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