[O] Emacs shell-script to tangle org-babel at the command line.

[Matthew Oesting]

I recently wrote what I thought to be a very simply she'll script to tangle a file; simply call the script on a file, e.g. 'tangle corgi.org' and a file, 'corgi.rb' (assuming one uses Ruby) appears in the local directory.

Tangling the file from within Emacs works normally. Tangling from this script does not work; the only interesting response is "tangled 0 code blocks from corgi.org". The same file tangles two blocks from within Emacs.

It seems that the org-babel-tangle function is using some piece of information present in the normal Emacs loading sequence which is not found during the script load. I could provide a large number of files, but I imagine that the problem will be obvious to someone here.

What is wrong with this code?

#!/usr/bin/emacs --script

;; The subdirectory ~/.emacs.d is to be added to the top-level elisp
;; file search.
(progn (cd "~/.emacs.d") (normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path))

;; Org-Mode, Org-Babel, and the tangle library are required, if we are
;; to proceed further.
(require 'org-install)
(require 'org)
(require 'ob-tangle)

;; Load the main configuration and setup file.
(require 'ob-ruby)
(require 'ob-python)
(require 'ob-emacs-lisp)
(require 'ob-lisp)

;; Tangle all files given.
(dolist (file command-line-args-left)
(princ file)
(org-babel-tangle-file file))

[Andrew Young]

Hi Matthew,

Post by Matthew Oesting
I recently wrote what I thought to be a very simply she'll script to tangle a file; simply call the script on a file, e.g. 'tangle corgi.org' and a file, 'corgi.rb' (assuming one uses Ruby) appears in the local directory.
Tangling the file from within Emacs works normally. Tangling from this script does not work; the only interesting response is "tangled 0 code blocks from corgi.org". The same file tangles two blocks from within Emacs.
It seems that the org-babel-tangle function is using some piece of information present in the normal Emacs loading sequence which is not found during the script load. I could provide a large number of files, but I imagine that the problem will be obvious to someone here.
What is wrong with this code?
#!/usr/bin/emacs --script
;; The subdirectory ~/.emacs.d is to be added to the top-level elisp
;; file search.
(progn (cd "~/.emacs.d") (normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path))
;; Org-Mode, Org-Babel, and the tangle library are required, if we are
;; to proceed further.
(require 'org-install)
(require 'org)
(require 'ob-tangle)
;; Load the main configuration and setup file.
(require 'ob-ruby)
(require 'ob-python)
(require 'ob-emacs-lisp)
(require 'ob-lisp)
;; Tangle all files given.
(dolist (file command-line-args-left)
(princ file)
(org-babel-tangle-file file))

The previous code works for me if the file I'm trying to tangle is in
"~/.emacs.d".

I think what may be happening is you are specifying your input files
as relative paths, and when you cd into .emacs.d, you are no longer
loading from the correct directory.

Are you getting output such as
#+begin_example
Wrote /home/user/.emacs.d/input-file.org
tangled 0 code blocks from input-file.org
#+end_example

Try replacing:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(progn (cd "~/.emacs.d")
(normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path))
#+end_src

with something that doesn't change the current directory of the buffer
permanently. Replace the progn line with following to allow the
assigned value of default-directory to go out of scope:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(let ((default-directory ~/.emacs.d))
(normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path))
#+end_src

Andrew

[Matthew Oesting]

You've hit upon it exactly; this solution works perfectly. Thank you, Andrew!

This little tidbit, a few lines at the header, and a slightly different script now make my tangled Orgmode files executable at the command line. Ah, the joys of literate code.

- M

This message was sent from my iPad.

Post by Andrew Young
Hi Matthew,
The previous code works for me if the file I'm trying to tangle is in
"~/.emacs.d".
...