add -dev flag, similar to -debug but does not emit absolute file paths

config.go

@@ -117,6 +117,16 @@ type Config struct {
 	// in the code. The default behaviour is Release mode.
 	Debug bool
 
+	// Perform a dev build, which is nearly identical to the debug option. The
+	// only difference is that instead of absolute file paths in generated code,
+	// it expects a variable, `rootDir`, to be set in the generated code's
+	// package (the author needs to do this manually), which it then prepends to
+	// an asset's name to construct the file path on disk.
+	//
+	// This is mainly so you can push the generated code file to a shared
+	// repository.
+	Dev bool
+
 	// Recursively process all assets in the input directory and its
 	// sub directories. This defaults to false, so only files in the
 	// input directory itself are read.

convert.go

@@ -63,8 +63,8 @@ func Translate(c *Config) error {
 	}
 
 	// Write assets.
-	if c.Debug {
+	if c.Debug || c.Dev {
-		err = writeDebug(bfd, toc)
+		err = writeDebug(bfd, c, toc)
 	} else {
 		err = writeRelease(bfd, c, toc)
 	}

debug.go

@@ -10,14 +10,14 @@ import (
 )
 
 // writeDebug writes the debug code file.
-func writeDebug(w io.Writer, toc []Asset) error {
+func writeDebug(w io.Writer, c *Config, toc []Asset) error {
 	err := writeDebugHeader(w)
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
 
 	for i := range toc {
-		err = writeDebugAsset(w, &toc[i])
+		err = writeDebugAsset(w, c, &toc[i])
 		if err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
@@ -59,10 +59,15 @@ type asset struct {
 // writeDebugAsset write a debug entry for the given asset.
 // A debug entry is simply a function which reads the asset from
 // the original file (e.g.: from disk).
-func writeDebugAsset(w io.Writer, asset *Asset) error {
+func writeDebugAsset(w io.Writer, c *Config, asset *Asset) error {
+	pathExpr := fmt.Sprintf("%q", asset.Path)
+	if c.Dev {
+		pathExpr = fmt.Sprintf("filepath.Join(rootDir, %q)", asset.Name)
+	}
+
 	_, err := fmt.Fprintf(w, `// %s reads file data from disk. It returns an error on failure.
 func %s() (*asset, error) {
-	path := %q
+	path := %s
 	name := %q
 	bytes, err := bindata_read(path, name)
 	if err != nil {
@@ -78,6 +83,6 @@ func %s() (*asset, error) {
 	return a, err
 }
 
-`, asset.Func, asset.Func, asset.Path, asset.Name)
+`, asset.Func, asset.Func, pathExpr, asset.Name)
 	return err
 }

go-bindata/main.go

@@ -7,11 +7,12 @@ package main
 import (
 	"flag"
 	"fmt"
-	"github.com/jteeuwen/go-bindata"
 	"os"
 	"path/filepath"
 	"regexp"
 	"strings"
+
+	"github.com/jteeuwen/go-bindata"
 )
 
 func main() {
@@ -40,6 +41,7 @@ func parseArgs() *bindata.Config {
 	}
 
 	flag.BoolVar(&c.Debug, "debug", c.Debug, "Do not embed the assets, but provide the embedding API. Contents will still be loaded from disk.")
+	flag.BoolVar(&c.Dev, "dev", c.Dev, "Similar to debug, but does not emit absolute paths. Expects a rootDir variable to already exist in the generated code's package.")
 	flag.StringVar(&c.Tags, "tags", c.Tags, "Optional set of build tags to include.")
 	flag.StringVar(&c.Prefix, "prefix", c.Prefix, "Optional path prefix to strip off asset names.")
 	flag.StringVar(&c.Package, "pkg", c.Package, "Package name to use in the generated code.")