TODO Catalog

A simple command line application to log TODO comments in a software project.

Description

This application traverses the directory of a project and reads all files with the specified extensions, logging all TOOO comments. Files and directories to ignore can be specified either by a config file or when using the command. This is recommended as it is surprising just how many Node modules and Python packages are littered with TODO comments.

Parameters

The following parameters are available in the command line when invoking the command.

  • -d, --dir - The root directory to scan for TODO comments. Defaults to current directory

  • -f, --file_ext - The file extensions that should be scanned

  • -fi, --files_to_ignore - The file names that should be ignored during scan

  • -di, --dirs_to_ignore - The directories that should be ignored during scan

  • -c, --config - The config file to read these parameters from. Defaults to todo_config

Examples

This application can be used with all configuration parameters specified in the function call.:

get_todo -f ".py, .js, .html" -fi "setup.py, nuxt.config.js" -di ".venv, node_modules"

Alternatively, all these parameters can be specified in a config file. The default name is todo_config but that can be specified when the application is called. The config file follows the specifications identified for the Python configparser

#todo_config
[DEFAULTS]
file_ext = .py, .js, .html
files_to_ignore = setup.py, tests.py,
dirs_to_ignore = node_modules, .venv

If not using the default filename todo_config then simply specify the config file when calling the function.:

get_todo -c "my_special_config"

Usage

One place this function can be useful is in the pre-commit step of a git hook. This will ensure that any TODO comments are logged and written to a TODO.md file upon commit. It is helpful to keep track of where you might be in a project if you have to take a break. Just add the following two lines of code to .git/hooks/pre-commit. It can also be a useful place to specify parameters if you don’t want one more config file in your project.:

get_todo # Add additional parameters here if desired.

git add TODO.md # Ensure we add the resultant TODO.md file to the commit