clip-files 0.4.1
clip-files copies.
Requires Python: >=3.8

# Clip Files 📋📁

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Introducing `clip-files` - a simple yet useful command-line utility to gather files with a specific extension, format them with their full path, and copy their contents to your clipboard with a token count for GPT-4 usage!
Makes it simple to paste in your entire project into e.g., ChatGPT or Claude.ai, now that massive token limits are available.

<details><summary><b><u>[ToC]</u></b> 📚</summary>

<!-- START doctoc generated TOC please keep comment here to allow auto update -->
<!-- DON'T EDIT THIS SECTION, INSTEAD RE-RUN doctoc TO UPDATE -->

- [:star2: Features](#star2-features)
- [:books: Usage](#books-usage)
- [:bulb: Examples](#bulb-examples)
- [:hammer_and_wrench: Installation](#hammer_and_wrench-installation)
- [:file_folder: Supported File Types](#file_folder-supported-file-types)
- [:1234: Token Counting](#1234-token-counting)
- [:heart: Support and Contributions](#heart-support-and-contributions)

<!-- END doctoc generated TOC please keep comment here to allow auto update -->

</details>

## :star2: Features

- 📋 Collect files with a specific extension and copy their formatted contents to your clipboard.
- 📁 Surrounds each file with `<file path="...">...</file>` for easy parsing by LLMs.
- 🧮 Calculate and display the total number of tokens used, compatible with GPT-4 tokenization.
- 🔄 Easily handle and process multiple files in various directories.

## :books: Usage

To use `clip-files`, simply provide the directory to search and the file extension you want to collect:

```bash
clip-files --help
```

Shows the help message:

<!-- CODE:BASH:START -->
<!-- echo '```bash' -->
<!-- clip-files --help -->
<!-- echo '```' -->
<!-- CODE:END -->

<!-- OUTPUT:START -->
<!-- ⚠️ This content is auto-generated by `markdown-code-runner`. -->
```bash
usage: clip-files [-h] [-i INITIAL_FILE] [-f FILES [FILES ...]] [-m MAXDEPTH]
                  [folder] [extension ...]

Collect files with specific extensions or specific files, format them for clipboard, and count tokens.
There are two main ways to use clip-files:
1. Collecting all files with specific extensions in a folder:
   `clip-files FOLDER EXTENSION [EXTENSIONS ...]`
   Examples:
   - `clip-files . .py`  # all Python files in current directory
   - `clip-files . .py .md .txt`  # all Python, Markdown, and text files in current directory
   - `clip-files src .txt`  # all text files in src directory
   - `clip-files docs .md --initial-file instructions.txt`  # with custom instructions
2. Collecting specific files (can be of different types):
   `clip-files --files FILE [FILE ...]`
   Examples:
   - `clip-files --files src/*.py tests/*.py`  # using shell wildcards
   - `clip-files --files src/main.py docs/README.md`  # different file types
   - `clip-files -f src/*.py -i instructions.txt`  # with custom instructions

Options:
  -f, --files        Specify individual files to include
  -i, --initial-file A file containing initial instructions

Note: When using wildcards (e.g., *.py), your shell will expand them before passing to clip-files.

positional arguments:
  folder                The folder to search for files.
  extension             The file extensions to look for (e.g., .py, .txt). If
                        not provided, includes all non-hidden, non-binary
                        files.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -i, --initial-file INITIAL_FILE
                        A file containing initial instructions to prepend to
                        the clipboard content. Default is an empty string.
  -f, --files FILES [FILES ...]
                        Specific file paths to include (e.g., --files
                        path/to/file1.py path/to/file2.md). If not provided,
                        all files with the specified extensions are included.
  -m, --maxdepth MAXDEPTH
                        Maximum directory depth to traverse (default: no
                        limit)
```

<!-- OUTPUT:END -->

`clip-files` will traverse the specified folder, gather files with the desired extension, format them with their paths, and copy the results to your clipboard along with the token count.

## :bulb: Examples

> [!TIP]
> Pro-tip! Just use `uv` to run `clip-files` without installing it.
> For example, `uv run clip-files --files *.py` will run `clip-files` in an temporary environment.

There are two main ways to use `clip-files`:

1. Collecting all files with a specific extension in a folder:

```bash
# Collect all Python files in the current directory
clip-files . .py

# Collect all text files in the documents folder
clip-files documents .txt

# Collect all Python files, including custom initial instructions
clip-files src .py --initial-file instructions.txt
```

2. Collecting specific files (can be of different types):

```bash
# Collect specific files
clip-files --files src/main.py tests/test_app.py

# Using shell wildcards to select files
clip-files --files src/*.py tests/*.py

# Mix different file types with wildcards
clip-files --files src/*.py docs/*.md config/*.json

# With custom initial instructions
clip-files --initial-file instructions.txt --files src/*.py
```

Note: When using wildcards (e.g., `*.py`), your shell will expand them before passing to `clip-files`.

## :hammer_and_wrench: Installation

To install `clip-files`, use pip:

```bash
pip install clip-files
```

Alternatively, clone the repository:

```bash
git clone https://github.com/basnijholt/clip-files.git
cd clip-files
pip install .
```

Or download the script directly:

```bash
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/basnijholt/clip-files/main/clip_files.py
```

and run it using:

```bash
python clip_files.py --help
```

## :file_folder: Supported File Types

`clip-files` supports any file type as long as you provide the correct file extension. Common examples include:

- `.py` for Python files
- `.txt` for text files
- `.md` for Markdown files

## :1234: Token Counting

`clip-files` integrates with the `tiktoken` library to calculate tokens as they would be counted in GPT-4. This helps in understanding the cost and feasibility of processing the collected text with GPT-4 models.

The script will display the total token count after copying the formatted content to the clipboard.

## :heart: Support and Contributions

We welcome feedback and contributions! If you encounter any issues or have suggestions for improvements, please file an issue on our GitHub repository. Contributions via pull requests are also appreciated.

Happy collecting and clipping! 📋📁🎉