# Elm CodeGen

Elm CodeGen is an **Elm package** and **CLI tool** for generating Elm code.

- [Here we are on NPM](https://www.npmjs.com/package/elm-codegen)
- [And the code docs on the Elm package website](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/mdgriffith/elm-codegen/latest/)

The goal is to be easier to write and more maintainable than that string template you have lying around. 😏

Here's what this tool does for you in order to make generating code simpler.

1. **Automatic imports** — Import declarations are calculated.
2. **Built in type inference** — The types for your generated code are inferred, which means generated things can figure out their own type signatures.
3. **Use existing packages easily** — For generating code that uses a specific _library_ such as [`elm-ui`](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/mdgriffith/elm-ui/latest/), the `elm-codegen` CLI can create some Elm code to help you out.
   Check out the [Using packages](https://github.com/mdgriffith/elm-codegen/tree/main/guide/UsingHelpers.md) guide to get a better idea of what this looks like!

To get started, here's a small example to give you an idea of what the code looks like!

```elm
Elm.declaration "anExample"
    (Elm.record
        [ ("name", Elm.string "a fancy string!")
        , ("fancy", Elm.bool True)
        ]
    )
    |> Elm.ToString.declaration
```

The above will generate the following string:

```elm
anExample : { name : String, fancy : Bool }
anExample =
    { name = "a fancy string!"
    , fancy = True
    }
```

## Check out the guide!

- [Getting started](https://github.com/mdgriffith/elm-codegen/tree/main/guide/GettingStarted.md)
- [Writing a generator](https://github.com/mdgriffith/elm-codegen/tree/main/guide/WritingAGenerator.md)
- [Using packages/helpers](https://github.com/mdgriffith/elm-codegen/tree/main/guide/UsingHelpers.md)
- [Running via TypeScript](https://github.com/mdgriffith/elm-codegen/tree/main/guide/UsingElmCodeGenInTypeScript.md)

And finally, the [elm-codegen package documentation](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/mdgriffith/elm-codegen/latest/).

## Using the CLI

```
npm install -g elm-codegen
```

Then you can start a codegen project using:

```
elm-codegen init
```