Dynamic Update Readme

As a power user, automate the updating of markdown text with content obtained from other actions in the workflow, as well as a Go module that can update markdown text

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Introduction

A Go module that updates markdown text and is integrated as a GitHub Action.

Parameters

Parameter	Workflow default	Description	Required	Possible values
readme_path	./README.md	Path of the markdown file	No	File path relative to the root directory of the GitHub repo
marker_text	null	Marker text to replace in markdown file	Yes	Example markers to be added in the markdown: <!-- marker_text_START --><!-- marker_text_END -->
markdown_text	null	Markdown text that needs to be updated	Yes	Any markdown compatible text
table	false	Markdown text is a table	No	true, false
table_options	null	Alignment for the table	No	align-Alignment, col-Column-align-Alignment, col-Column-w-Min-width

^{Alignment: left, right, center
Column: Column number of the table (starts with 0)
Min-width: Minimum width of a column (in other words, minimum number of hyphens (-) in the delimiter row)}

Notes:

• Make sure to change the following in your GitHub repo settings: Actions > General > Workflow permissions > Choose Read and write permissions > Check Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests > Save.
• Other parameters commit_user, commit_email, commit_message and confirm_and_push related to action workflow are optional.
• If confirm_and_push is "false" committer detalis can be accessed via outputs.commit_user, outputs.commit_email & outputs.commit_message for further usage in the workflow.
• The syntax mostly revolves around GitHub Flavored Markdown parser.
• The table parameter is optional as markdown_text supports table markdown syntax by default but this parameter can be used as a simple alternative or any special use case. If table is "true":
  • It uses github.com/willabides/mdtable module.
  • markdown_text contents should follow these conditions:
    • Table row contents are seperated with ";" delimiter. First element will make up the table header.
    • For each element of table rows, table column contents are seperated with "," delimiter.
  • table_options can be used only if table is "true".
    • Description of options/values:
      1. align-: This option aligns the whole table according to the alignment set.
      2. col-: This option sets properties of any particular column based on the column number.
    • Order of preference of the alignment options: col- > align-
• The markdown file must contain start marker <!-- EXAMPLE_MARKER_START --> and end marker <!-- EXAMPLE_MARKER_END --> where "EXAMPLE_MARKER" is the input of marker_text parameter. Note that the _START and _END part is important.

Usage

Check the example workflow here.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.

Acknowledgements

This project uses few of the open-source Go modules, without which it would not have been possible. I extend my gratitude to the developers and maintainers of these modules for their valuable contributions to the open-source community:

• github.com/willabides/mdtable - Generates markdown tables from string slices.
• github.com/mattn/go-runewidth - Provides functions to get fixed width of the character or string.
• github.com/rivo/uniseg - Implements Unicode Text Segmentation, Word Wrapping, and String Width Calculation.

License

This project is licensed under GPL-3.0.
Copyright © 2024, Naveen Prashanth. All Rights Reserved.