Example
Here is a sample record from a YAML-based snippet management system I created years ago:
- caption: fieldset msie5
tinycap: fieldset
domain: html
desc: fieldset and legend tag
wwbody: |
<fieldset>
<legend>legend</legend>
</fieldset>
You can repeat that or something like it for all the snippets you want to manage. This particular system stores the snippets as an array of name-value pairs (Perl people would call this an AoH). If you do not need all this extra information, just two name-value pairs will suffice (e.g., caption + body).
The nice thing about this system: YAML indentation prevents “delimiter collision” problems. You never have to use clumsy escape sequences inside your snippet body.
Text Editor or IDE alternative
Note: Increasingly, text editors and IDEs support flexible snippet management options natively, so you may want to consider using the format of a text editor rather than re-inventing your own. If you do re-invent your own, you can write a script to translate your YAML format into the native format of a text editor if you later decide you want to do that.
See also:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snippet_%28programming%29
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delimiter#Delimiter_collision
- http://perldoc.perl.org/perldsc.html#ARRAYS-OF-HASHES (Perl AoH)
- http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl/?node_id=347905