Documenter.py — A Python Script for Generating HTML Documentation

Overview

documenter.py is a Python script that automatically generates an HTML-based documentation of your project’s file structure and contents. It walks through a specified project directory, lists all subdirectories and files, and includes the code or text from each file in an easy-to-navigate HTML page.

Notable features include:

• Copy Button next to each file for quick copy-pasting of individual file contents.
• Copy ALL Text button to copy every file’s content into your clipboard at once.
• Optional Sensitive Information Masking (removes $host, $user, $pass, $db, $charset lines).
• Ignore Mechanism to skip certain directories/files (like .git, .DS_Store, etc.).
• No External Dependencies beyond Python’s standard library.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
  • Command-Line Arguments
• Example
• License
• Author

Installation

1. Clone the repository (or download the script directly):

   git clone https://github.com/josephbartlett/code-documenter.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

   cd code-documenter

3. Ensure you have Python 3.x installed.
4. No additional dependencies are required.

Usage

Run the script with Python, specifying the target directory you want documented:

python documenter.py /path/to/project

Command-Line Arguments

• directory (required)
  Path to the project directory you want to document.

• -o, --output (optional)
  Name of the output HTML file.
  Default: <directoryname>_Documentation.html.

• -r, --remove_sensitive (optional)
  Remove sensitive information (lines containing $host, $user, $pass, $db, $charset).

• -i, --ignore_list (optional)
  Provide a list of substrings or filenames to ignore.
  Example: -i node_modules venv test.log

• --include_all (optional)
  Override all ignores and include every file/folder in the documentation.

Example

# Generate documentation for the "my_project" folder
python documenter.py my_project

# Generate documentation and output to custom filename
python documenter.py my_project -o docs.html

# Generate documentation, remove sensitive info, and ignore "node_modules"
python documenter.py my_project -r -i node_modules

# Ignore nothing (include all files)
python documenter.py my_project --include_all

When complete, you’ll have an HTML file containing:

1. A clickable list of your project’s folders and files.
2. File content in <pre> blocks for each file, with “Copy” buttons.
3. A “Copy ALL Text” button that copies content from all files.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Author

Joseph Bartlett
Email: [email protected]
GitHub: github.com/josephbartlett

Feel free to reach out or open an issue if you have any questions or suggestions.