SWRAP: Session WRAPper

Why we need this?

Even when working on one project, usually multiple software are needed. For example, in programming, emacs is used to edit source code, one bash is used for testing, another is used for compiling. It is tedious to startup them, open latest file, type latest command etc. screen and session management of the software can be used to facilitate this. Multiple software can be started by screen automatically if you specify them in ~/.screenrc, Latest opened files can be saved by emacs desktop mechanism, latest typed command can be remember by bash history.

But it is common to work on multiple projects simultaneously. Even if you work on just one project, you may use your computer both for work and leisure. The configuration and saved state for different projects may conflict. For example, two project may use different coding style, so that different emacs configuration are needed. The bash history from one project may flush that from another project. swrap provides a way to manage mutiple configuration and saved state for each software using a simple directory based scheme. A group of software for one project can be managed with a directory hierarchy. While multiple projects are managed with multiple directory hierarchy.

Introduction

swrap stands for Session WRAPper, it provides a directory based session management for some software. The session here incude configuration files, saved state files etc. All configuration files, saved state files and other related files for each session are put into one directory. So that you can have multiple configuration, saved state at the same time. For example, you can have multiple bash histories, one for each session. This way, if you work on multiple projects simultaneously, bash history uses in one project will not flush the bash history used in another project.

Usage

swrap <command> <session directory> [<arg1> <arg2> ...]

Where

• <command> is software that is wrapped.
• <session directory> is the directory to store session related file, which can be an absolute, relative path name or a directory under ~/sessions. The base name of the <session directory> will be used as the session name at least for screen.
• <arg1> <arg2> ... are arguments for <command>.

Supported software

Bash

Configuration

• .bashrc in session directory instead of the global one will be used if provided.

Saved state

• A dedicated .bash_history in session directory will be used instead of the global one.

Emacs

Configuration

• emacs_init.el in session directory will be used as initialization file in addition to the default one.

Saved state

• Emacs desktop is used to save state, and saved state (.emacs.desktop) will be put into session directory instead of emacs startup directory or home directory.

Screen

Configuration

• screenrc in session directory will be used as initialization file instead of default one, but the default one can be loaded in this file if desired.
• screen is used to manage other software, so screen session can be seen as a compound session, while software run inside screen can be seen as sub-sesssion. So it is natural to make session directories for software run inside screen the sub-directories of screen session directory. These sub-directories can be specified as session directories for software run in screen in screenrc.

Saved state

• No saved state is supported

Example

Directory "example" shows a project session directory hierarchy managed by swrap. There are 3 software in project: screen, emacs and bash. "example" is session directory for screen, "example/screenrc" is screen configuration file. "example/0" is session directory for emacs, which is in window 0 of screen. "example/1" is session directory for bash, which is in window 1 of screen. "example/screenrc" is as follow:

source ~/.screenrc

chdir ~/projects/mce/apei/firmwarekit/linuxfirmwarekit
screen -t build 1
stuff "exec swrap bash $SESSION_DIR/1""^M"
stuff "clear""^M"

screen -t emacs 0
stuff "swrap emacs $SESSION_DIR/0 --no-window-system""^M" 

Where swrap is used to execute software in screen windows, and corresponding session directories are specified too.

When you execute:

  swrap screen <path to>/example 

or

  cp -r <path to>/example ~/sessions
  sscreen example 

You will return to your latest project state or a new project state will be created for you.

Download

swrap can be downloaded at here.