The plugin parses **protobuf** files, generates an **ast**, and walks a local **templates directory** to generate files using the [Golang's `text/template` engine](https://golang.org/pkg/text/template/).
## Philosophy
* protobuf-first
* no built-in template, only user defined templates
* kiss, *keep it stupid simple*
## Under the hood
1. the *user*`protobuf` files are parsed by [`protoc`](https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases)
2. the `ast` is generated by [`protoc-gen-go` helpers](https://github.com/golang/protobuf/tree/master/protoc-gen-go)
3. the `ast` is given to [Golang's `text/template` engine](https://golang.org/pkg/text/template/) for each *user* template files
4. the *funcmap* enriching the template engine is based on [Masterminds/sprig](https://github.com/Masterminds/sprig), and contains type-manipulation, iteration and language-specific helpers
Every file ending with `.tmpl` will be processed and written to the destination folder, following the file hierarchy of the `template_dir`, and remove the `.tmpl` extension.
| `template_dir` | `./template` | absolute or relative path | path to look for templates
| `destination_dir` | `.` | absolute or relative path | base path to write output
| `single-package-mode` | *false* | `true` or `false` | if *true*, `protoc` won't accept multiple packages to be compiled at once (*!= from `all`*), but will support `Message` lookup across the imported protobuf dependencies
| `debug` | *false* | `true` or `false` | if *true*, `protoc` will generate a more verbose output
| `all` | *false* | `true` or `false` | if *true*, protobuf files without `Service` will also be parsed
Shipping the templates with your project is very smart and useful when contributing on git-based projects.
Another workflow consists in having a dedicated repository for generic templates which is then versioned and vendored with multiple projects (npm package, golang vendor package, ...)
This project uses [Masterminds/sprig](https://github.com/Masterminds/sprig) library and additional functions to extend the builtin [text/template](https://golang.org/pkg/text/template) helpers.