[WIP] feat: add output directory option

[obihill]

Hi,

Thanks for putting this module together. It's been very useful.

I wanted to make a few additions to cover my specific use-cases. I had posted two other requests earlier, but I later realized that I was working off the npm code, which is not up-to-date, so I started again using the current version 1.3.0.

Options functionality has been added to the .write method. Two options are currently available. The output_dir option covers the requirement in Issue #44.

You can see the readme for more information.

Thanks.

[bcoe]

It looks like you accidentally deleted the README file.

[obihill]

@bcoe No, I didn't. I excluded it from the branch because I updated the readme on the fork of your repo as the basis for a temporary npm package. I'm currently using this package to enable the custom output directory feature.

[bcoe]

Hey @obihill would be grateful for contributions 🙌, mind potentially splitting this into a few pull requests with descriptions of one distinct thing that is being added or fixed in each one 👌

[obihill]

Hi @bcoe. 'Not sure how I would simplify it further. If you look at the diff breakdown, the updates seem pretty straightforward.

Alternatively, you could actually just take the code [and rework it], then we could close the pull request.

Basically, all I've done is add optionality to pti.write, then added two options[backup and output_dir] to enable timestamped backups and output to a custom directory respectively.

[bcoe]

@obihill I think if we could keep this PR centered to just the output_dir feature:

1. describing how you set the option in the README.
2. adding a couple tests for the feature.

I'd be really happy to land this. If you don't have the time, understandably, I would be happy to rework -- but if you do want to pick up this PR, I'm more than happy to provide feedback.

[mvegter]

Hi @bcoe, any chance in having this cherry-picked instead of waiting for the author?

[bcoe]

@mvegter yeah, I would be happy to take a patch that uses @obihill's work as a starting point.

@obihill I'm sorry that I didn't see this over the finish line, I appreciate the work you put in (it's a great start).

[obihill]

@bcoe My apologies for the delayed response to this.

Regarding the options info on the readme, I have something penned on the forked repo here where I've implemented this feature already, also to an npm package.

As I said earlier, I'm ok with you using this as your guide to implement directly i.e. outside this pull request. If you look at the diff, you'll see the changes are not major.

[bcoe]

@obihill I just want to make sure you get credit for your contribution 👍

Perhaps you could squash your work on this branch into one commit, and then I can just submit a patch against it?

[obihill]

@bcoe No, it's fine, no credit sought. Besides, I just made a small tweak.

The substantive commit is this one:
9ee8a49. You can disregard the others. I'll see if I can delete them.

[mvegter]

Hi @obihill , I cherry-picked your changes as we also had them in our own fork. Perhaps your backup changes can be proposed to and it all will be in a single package.

[obihill]

Hi @mvegter. Sure, I don't mind. Can you guide me on how to make that happen? Alternatively, the substantive code for the backup feature is line 98 to 112 in lib/output-files.js, with requirement of lib/utils.js for generating the datetime code i.e. if you wanted to cherry-pick.