Copyright Header

Features

Add/remove a copyright headers recursively on source files
Customize the syntax configuration for how to write out comments
Built-in support for GPL3 and MIT licenses
Supports custom licenes with --license-file argument
ERB template support

Caveats

Will only remove headers to files that have exactly the same header as the one we added
Will only add headers to files which do not contain the case-sensitive pattern /[Cc]opyright|[Lc]icense/ in the first N lines
Will not properly format arguments that contain new-line ("\n") characters.

Requirements

Ruby 1.9.2 (supported version, might work with older rubies but not guaranteed)

Installation

Install Copyright Header from RubyForge:

gem install copyright-header

Usage

Full list of supported arguments:

Usage: copyright-header options [file]
    -n, --dry-run                    Output the parsed files to STDOUT
    -o, --output-dir DIR             Use DIR as output directory
        --license-file FILE          Use FILE as header (instead of using --license argument)
        --license [AGPL3|ASL2|BSD-2-CLAUSE|BSD-3-CLAUSE|BSD-4-CLAUSE|GPL3|MIT]
                                     Use LICENSE as header
        --copyright-software NAME    The common name for this piece of software (e.g. "Copyright Header")
        --copyright-software-description DESC
                                     The detailed description for this piece of software (e.g. "A utility to manipulate copyright headers on source code files")
        --copyright-holder NAME      The legal owner of the copyright for the software. (e.g. "Erik Osterman <e@osterman.com>"). Repeat argument for multiple names.
        --copyright-year YEAR        The years for which the copyright exists (e.g. "2012-2017"). Repeat argument for multiple years.
    -w, --word-wrap LEN              Maximum number of characters per line for license (default: 80)
    -a, --add-path PATH              Recursively insert header in all files found in path (allows multiple paths separated by platform path-separator ":")
    -r, --remove-path PATH           Recursively remove header in all files found in path (allows multiple paths separated by platform path-separator ":")
    -g, --guess-extension            Use the GitHub Linguist gem to guess the extension of the source code when no extension can be determined (experimental).
    -c, --syntax FILE                Syntax configuration file
    -V, --version                    Display version information
    -h, --help                       Display this screen

Examples

Discover available parameters by passing the --help argument

copyright-header --help

Add a GPL3 License header to a file:

copyright-header --add-path /tmp/test.rb \
                 --license GPL3 \
                 --copyright-holder 'Joe Shmoe' \
                 --copyright-software 'Example Software' \
                 --copyright-software-description "This is the description of the software." \
                 --copyright-year 2012-2017 \
                 --output-dir /tmp \
                 --dry-run

Remove the header created in the previous step (without --dry-run argument):

copyright-header --remove-path /tmp/test.rb \
                 --license GPL3 \
                 --copyright-holder 'Joe Shmoe' \
                 --copyright-software 'Example Software' \
                 --copyright-software-description 'This is the description of the software.' \
                 --copyright-year 2012-2017 \
                 --output-dir /tmp \
                 --dry-run

Command used to generate copyright headers for this script:

copyright-header  --license GPL3  \
                  --add-path lib/:bin/ \
                  --guess-extension \
                  --copyright-holder 'Erik Osterman <e@osterman.com>' \
                  --copyright-software 'Copyright Header' \
                  --copyright-software-description "A utility to manipulate copyright headers on source code files" \
                  --copyright-year 2012-2017 \
                  --word-wrap 100 \
                  --output-dir ./

Paths can be either files or directories. It will recursively traverse the directory tree ignoring all dot files.

You can specify an alternative syntax configuration file using the --syntax argument.

Rake

The above example can be performed as rake task inside a Rakefile:

task :headers do
  require 'rubygems'
  require 'copyright_header'

  args = {
    :license => 'GPL3',
    :copyright_software => 'Copyright Header',
    :copyright_software_description => "A utility to manipulate copyright headers on source code files",
    :copyright_holders => ['Erik Osterman <e@osterman.com>'],
    :copyright_years => ['2012-2017'],
    :add_path => 'lib',
    :output_dir => '.'
  }

  command_line = CopyrightHeader::CommandLine.new( args )
  command_line.execute
end

Docker

docker run --rm --volume `pwd`:/usr/src/ osterman/copyright-header:latest \
  --license GPL3 \
  --add-path . \
  --guess-extension \
  --copyright-holder 'Erik Osteman <e@osterman.com>' \
  --copyright-software 'Copyright Header' \
  --copyright-software-description 'A utility to manipulate copyright headers on source code files' \
  --copyright-year 2012-2017 \
  --word-wrap 100 \
  --output-dir /usr/src/

Make

Here is how we typically use it in our Makefile.

Check out the Cloud Posse build-harness for other neat tricks.

Contributors

https://github.com/osterman/copyright-header/graphs/contributors

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Added some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create new Pull Request

Contact Information

Author: Erik Osterman
E-mail: e@osterman.com
Homepage: http://www.osterman.com/

colindean/copyright-header