remove WRITE_SELECTED

Implementation is buggy and unreliable. Therefore, it is better to
remove the functionality until a robust implementation is added.

docs/faq.rst

@@ -217,10 +217,6 @@ changed. A simple solution is to make ``rsync`` use the ``--checksum`` option,
 which will make it compare the file checksums in a much faster way than Pelican
 would.
 
-When only several specific output files are of interest (e.g. when working on
-some specific page or the theme templates), the ``WRITE_SELECTED`` option may
-help, see :ref:`writing_only_selected_content`.
-
 How to process only a subset of all articles?
 =============================================
 

docs/publish.rst

@@ -18,18 +18,6 @@ folder, using the default theme to produce a simple site. The default theme
 consists of very simple HTML without styling and is provided so folks may use
 it as a basis for creating their own themes.
 
-When working on a single article or page, it is possible to generate only the
-file that corresponds to that content. To do this, use the ``--write-selected``
-argument, like so::
-
-    pelican --write-selected output/posts/my-post-title.html
-
-Note that you must specify the path to the generated *output* file — not the
-source content. To determine the output file name and location, use the
-``--debug`` flag. If desired, ``--write-selected`` can take a comma-separated
-list of paths or can be configured as a setting. (See:
-:ref:`writing_only_selected_content`)
-
 You can also tell Pelican to watch for your modifications, instead of manually
 re-running it every time you want to see your changes. To enable this, run the
 ``pelican`` command with the ``-r`` or ``--autoreload`` option. On non-Windows

docs/settings.rst

@@ -362,13 +362,6 @@ Basic settings
 
    If ``True``, load unmodified content from caches.
 
-.. data:: WRITE_SELECTED = []
-
-   If this list is not empty, **only** output files with their paths in this
-   list are written. Paths should be either absolute or relative to the current
-   Pelican working directory. For possible use cases see
-   :ref:`writing_only_selected_content`.
-
 .. data:: FORMATTED_FIELDS = ['summary']
 
    A list of metadata fields containing reST/Markdown content to be parsed and
@@ -1400,21 +1393,6 @@ modification times of the generated ``*.html`` files will always change.
 Therefore, ``rsync``-based uploading may benefit from the ``--checksum``
 option.
 
-.. _writing_only_selected_content:
-
-
-Writing only selected content
-=============================
-
-When only working on a single article or page, or making tweaks to your theme,
-it is often desirable to generate and review your work as quickly as possible.
-In such cases, generating and writing the entire site output is often
-unnecessary. By specifying only the desired files as output paths in the
-``WRITE_SELECTED`` list, **only** those files will be written. This list can be
-also specified on the command line using the ``--write-selected`` option, which
-accepts a comma-separated list of output file paths. By default this list is
-empty, so all output is written. See :ref:`site_generation` for more details.
-
 
 Example settings
 ================

pelican/__init__.py

@@ -434,15 +434,6 @@ def parse_arguments(argv=None):
         help="Ignore content cache " "from previous runs by not loading cache files.",
     )
 
-    parser.add_argument(
-        "-w",
-        "--write-selected",
-        type=str,
-        dest="selected_paths",
-        default=None,
-        help="Comma separated list of selected paths to write",
-    )
-
     parser.add_argument(
         "--fatal",
         metavar="errors|warnings",
@@ -527,8 +518,6 @@ def get_config(args):
         config["LOAD_CONTENT_CACHE"] = False
     if args.cache_path:
         config["CACHE_PATH"] = args.cache_path
-    if args.selected_paths:
-        config["WRITE_SELECTED"] = args.selected_paths.split(",")
     if args.relative_paths:
         config["RELATIVE_URLS"] = args.relative_paths
     if args.port is not None:

pelican/settings.py

@@ -169,7 +169,6 @@ def load_source(name, path):
     "GZIP_CACHE": True,
     "CHECK_MODIFIED_METHOD": "mtime",
     "LOAD_CONTENT_CACHE": False,
-    "WRITE_SELECTED": [],
     "FORMATTED_FIELDS": ["summary"],
     "PORT": 8000,
     "BIND": "127.0.0.1",
@@ -557,6 +556,13 @@ def handle_deprecated_settings(settings):
             )
             settings[old] = settings[new]
 
+    # Warn if removed WRITE_SELECTED is present
+    if "WRITE_SELECTED" in settings:
+        logger.warning(
+            "WRITE_SELECTED is present in settings but this functionality was removed. "
+            "It will have no effect."
+        )
+
     return settings
 
 
@@ -585,12 +591,6 @@ def configure_settings(settings):
         else:
             raise Exception("Could not find the theme %s" % settings["THEME"])
 
-    # make paths selected for writing absolute if necessary
-    settings["WRITE_SELECTED"] = [
-        os.path.abspath(path)
-        for path in settings.get("WRITE_SELECTED", DEFAULT_CONFIG["WRITE_SELECTED"])
-    ]
-
     # standardize strings to lowercase strings
     for key in ["DEFAULT_LANG"]:
         if key in settings:

pelican/tests/test_pelican.py

@@ -202,29 +202,6 @@ def test_theme_static_paths_copy_single_file(self):
         for file in ["a_stylesheet", "a_template"]:
             self.assertTrue(os.path.exists(os.path.join(theme_output, file)))
 
-    def test_write_only_selected(self):
-        """Test that only the selected files are written"""
-        settings = read_settings(
-            path=None,
-            override={
-                "PATH": INPUT_PATH,
-                "OUTPUT_PATH": self.temp_path,
-                "CACHE_PATH": self.temp_cache,
-                "WRITE_SELECTED": [
-                    os.path.join(self.temp_path, "oh-yeah.html"),
-                    os.path.join(self.temp_path, "categories.html"),
-                ],
-                "LOCALE": locale.normalize("en_US"),
-            },
-        )
-        pelican = Pelican(settings=settings)
-        logger = logging.getLogger()
-        orig_level = logger.getEffectiveLevel()
-        logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)
-        mute(True)(pelican.run)()
-        logger.setLevel(orig_level)
-        self.assertLogCountEqual(count=2, msg="Writing .*", level=logging.INFO)
-
     def test_cyclic_intersite_links_no_warnings(self):
         settings = read_settings(
             path=None,

pelican/utils.py

@@ -840,19 +840,6 @@ def split_all(path):
         )
 
 
-def is_selected_for_writing(settings, path):
-    """Check whether path is selected for writing
-    according to the WRITE_SELECTED list
-
-    If WRITE_SELECTED is an empty list (default),
-    any path is selected for writing.
-    """
-    if settings["WRITE_SELECTED"]:
-        return path in settings["WRITE_SELECTED"]
-    else:
-        return True
-
-
 def path_to_file_url(path):
     """Convert file-system path to file:// URL"""
     return urllib.parse.urljoin("file://", urllib.request.pathname2url(path))

pelican/writers.py

@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
 from pelican.plugins import signals
 from pelican.utils import (
     get_relative_path,
-    is_selected_for_writing,
     path_to_url,
     sanitised_join,
     set_date_tzinfo,
@@ -145,9 +144,6 @@ def write_feed(
             name should be skipped to keep that one)
         :param feed_title: the title of the feed.o
         """
-        if not is_selected_for_writing(self.settings, path):
-            return
-
         self.site_url = context.get("SITEURL", path_to_url(get_relative_path(path)))
 
         self.feed_domain = context.get("FEED_DOMAIN")
@@ -203,13 +199,7 @@ def write_file(
         :param **kwargs: additional variables to pass to the templates
         """
 
-        if (
-            name is False
-            or name == ""
-            or not is_selected_for_writing(
-                self.settings, os.path.join(self.output_path, name)
-            )
-        ):
+        if name is False or name == "":
             return
         elif not name:
             # other stuff, just return for now