Absolute path in templates

[MrTango]

Hi, i really like what i could archive in short time with Copier. But I'm stuck with one thing.
I need to genrate an absolute path in some config files. Absolute meaning the absolute path to the generated folder. I only could find dest path which is relative to that destination folder.

[sisp]

I assume by "dest path" you mean the _copier_conf.dst_path variable in the render context. Correct? If so, would {{ _copier_conf.dst_path | realpath }} solve your problem?

[MrTango]

the absolute path i would only need for the copy command, not the update.
So if there is a way to use that path when doing the initial copy, but not touching it when doing an update, that would be perfect.

[sisp]

I don't think this is possible at the moment. Do you need to be able to update anything in the config file? If not, you could add it to the _skip_if_exists list in copier.yml:

_skip_if_exists:
  - path/to/your/config.yml

[MrTango]

maybe storing the path in a question answer, is a solution?
Let's say we store that only on operation copy and not on update, this way the default should be the inital path set on copy.
Does this make sense?
Also is it possible to hide question like this?
Because they are not really to answer bu the user.

[sisp]

Perhaps with inspiration from #1574 (comment)?

• copier.yml:

  dst_path:
    type: str
    default: "{% if dst_path is defined %}{{ dst_path }}{% else %}{{ _copier_conf.dst_path }}{% endif %}"
    when: false

• {{ _copier_conf.answers_file }}.jinja:

  # Changes here will be overwritten by Copier; NEVER EDIT MANUALLY
  {{ _copier_answers|to_nice_yaml }}
  dst_path: "{{ dst_path }}"

This provides a computed value dst_path in the render context, which is _copier_conf.dst_path upon copier copy and subsequent copier update (or copier recopy) will take the "answer" from .copier-answers.yml.

[sisp]

@MrTango I just stumbled over #1727 (comment) again while replying to #1203 (reply in thread). Perhaps this slightly modified variant is even more streamlined:

• copier.yml:

  dst_path:
    type: str
    default: "{{ dst_path | default(_copier_conf.dst_path) }}"
    when: false

• {{ _copier_conf.answers_file }}.jinja:

  # Changes here will be overwritten by Copier; NEVER EDIT MANUALLY
  {{ dict(_copier_answers, dst_path=dst_path) | to_nice_yaml }}

[MrTango]

I was trying to use this path also in a task _copier_operation == 'update, but this is run twice and the second time the dest_path is again the tmp folder. So for now this is unusable for tasks in update mode.

[MrTango]

@sisp i guess we have to find a way how to store that variable only on copy and only read it in update mode.
It would be really useful to have this working too.
As it would allow things like, doing a git status in the correct directory right after updating.

[sisp]

You can access the right destination path after an update in a post-migration task like this:

_migrations:
  - command: 'git -C "{{ _copier_conf.dst_path }}" status' # or using the computed value `dst_path`
    when: "{{ _stage == 'after' }}"

[MrTango]

that works great thx