Static Site Generator (SSG) built in Go

Generate static HTML pages from Markdown files.

This project is inspired by boot.dev's Build a Static Site Generator course that builds the SSG in Python. Currently, files in ./content directory, ./static/images/rivendell.png and ./static/index.css files are copied from that course.

How to use

• Place static files (images, icons, css, js, etc.) in ./static directory. They will get copied to ./public directory with the same directory structure.

• Link all static files (css, js, favicon, site manifest, etc.) in template.html.

• Place website page contents in Markdown file format inside ./content directory. They will be used to generate HTML pages that will be added to the ./public directory with the same directory structure.

• If you want to use different directories or different template file to generate pages, update staticDir, contentDir, destinationDir and templatePath variables in ./cmd/main.go file.

• To generate pages and serve them to localhost, run from project's root:

  ./main.sh
  # or
  make run
  # or
  go run ./cmd

How it works

• Project copies all files and subdirectories from ./static directory to ./public directory.

• Reads all Markdown files from ./content directory and for each of them:

  1. Extracts page title from the first heading tag (# some title) encountered in the file;

  2. Replaces title placeholder ( {{ Title }} ) in template with extracted title;

  3. Creates root <div> HTMLNode node to build HTML node tree;

  4. Splits markdown file contents into following blocks:

     • paragraph
     • heading
     • code
     • quote
     • unordered_list
     • ordered_list

  5. Creates associated HTMLNode for each block and adds it to the node tree's root node's children:

     Block	HTMLNode
     paragraph	<p> node
     heading	<h1> , ... , <h6> node
     code	<code> node contained inside <pre> node
     quote	<blockquote> node
     unordered_list	<li> nodes contained inside <ul> node
     ordered_list	<li> nodes contained inside <ol> node

  6. Splits each block's text (except code block) into following inline text nodes:

     • text
     • bold
     • italic
     • code
     • link
     • image

  7. Creates associated HTMLNodes for each TextNode and adds them to the node tree under their parent node:

     TextNode	HTMLNode
     text	inline text node
     bold	<b> node
     italic	<i> node
     code	<code> node
     link	<a> node
     image	<img> node

  8. Generates HTML string by parsing previously created HTMLNode node tree;

  9. Replaces content placeholder ( {{ Content }} ) in template with generated html code;

  10. Writes final HTML string to the file in ./public directory with the same name and directory structure as its source file.

Testing

There are tests available for every module that doesn't interact with file system.

Tests can be run by:

./test.sh
# or
make test
# or
go clean -testcache && go test ./...