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Super simple static site generator

I thought static site generators seemed like a cool modern alternative to frames until I looked at how they worked. Utter insanity. I'd rather learn php. If your site uses frames and/or could be easily rewritten to, this is the static site generator for you.

This works in Python 2.7 and Python 3. I could just about say I "wrote" it, because I transcribed it as my husband dictated it. I actually understood enough to spot a mistake, so let's just go ahead and say I wrote it all myself.

This is how I have my files and folders set up:

	/website
		/_building
			/pages
			builder.py
			footer.html
			header.html

/pages, footer.html and header.html are part of the script and need to be changed there if you change them. Everything else you can name whatever you want. I use an underscore at the start of this working folder name to keep it separate from my real for-upload folders. The files in the /pages folder should have their final intended names, ie index.html, about.html

It outputs into the /website folder, whatever it's called. It works with subfolders, too (like my /articles subfolder), but pay attention to the links/image paths/stylesheet locations/etc. in your header and footer (they need to start with a slash if you use subfolders)

import os

file_list = os.listdir("pages")

for file in file_list[:]:
	if os.path.isdir(os.path.join("pages", file)):
		for subfile in os.listdir(os.path.join("pages", file)):
			file_list.append(os.path.join(file, subfile))
		
with open("header.html", "r") as f:
	header = f.read()
	
with open("footer.html", "r") as f:
	footer = f.read()

for file in file_list:
	if os.path.isdir(os.path.join("pages", file)):
		try:
			os.makedirs(os.path.join("..", file))
		except:
			pass
		continue
	print (file)
	with open(os.path.join("pages", file), "r") as f:
		contents = f.read()
		
	contents = header + contents + footer
	
	with open(os.path.join("..", file), "w") as f:
		f.write(contents)

This version only builds the page if you've created a new page, edited a page, or edited the header/footer:

import os

file_list = os.listdir("pages")

for file in file_list[:]:
	if os.path.isdir(os.path.join("pages", file)):
		for subfile in os.listdir(os.path.join("pages", file)):
			file_list.append(os.path.join(file, subfile))
		
with open("header.html", "r") as f:
	header = f.read()
header_edittime = os.path.getmtime("header.html")
	
with open("footer.html", "r") as f:
	footer = f.read()
footer_edittime = os.path.getmtime("footer.html")

for file in file_list:
	if (
		os.path.exists(os.path.join("..", file))
		and
		max(
			os.path.getmtime(os.path.join("pages", file)), 
			header_edittime,
			footer_edittime,
		)< os.path.getmtime(os.path.join("..", file))
	):
		continue
	if os.path.isdir(os.path.join("pages", file)):
		try:
			os.makedirs(os.path.join("..", file))
		except:
			pass
		continue
	print (file)
	with open(os.path.join("pages", file), "r") as f:
		contents = f.read()
		
	contents = header + contents + footer
	
	with open(os.path.join("..", file), "w") as f:
		f.write(contents)