Make Transform a little more pleasant to use:

pkg/barback/lib/src/transform.dart

Index: pkg/barback/lib/src/transform.dart
diff --git a/pkg/barback/lib/src/transform.dart b/pkg/barback/lib/src/transform.dart
index d5d717696ff041f72d7077628ad224e3a5a2099a..d8e960f7205acbddab261f879a764098ec9412ed 100644
--- a/pkg/barback/lib/src/transform.dart
+++ b/pkg/barback/lib/src/transform.dart
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 library barback.transform;
 
 import 'dart:async';
+import 'dart:convert';
 
 import 'asset.dart';
 import 'asset_id.dart';
@@ -34,7 +35,10 @@ class Transform {
 
   final AssetSet _outputs;
 
-  /// Gets the ID of the primary input for this transformation.
+  /// A logger so that the [Transformer] can report build details.
+  TransformLogger get logger => _logger;
+
+  /// Gets the primary input asset.
   ///
   /// While a transformation can use multiple input assets, one must be a
   /// special "primary" asset. This will be the "entrypoint" or "main" input
@@ -43,13 +47,10 @@ class Transform {
   /// For example, with a dart2js transform, the primary input would be the
   /// entrypoint Dart file. All of the other Dart files that that imports
   /// would be secondary inputs.
-  AssetId get primaryId => _node.primary.id;
-
-  /// A logger so that the [Transformer] can report build details.
-  TransformLogger get logger => _logger;
-
-  /// Gets the asset for the primary input.
-  Future<Asset> get primaryInput => getInput(primaryId);
+  Asset get primaryInput {
+    assert(_node.primary.state == AssetState.AVAILABLE);

[nweiz, 2013/08/28 19:29:43]

This shouldn't be an assertion. It's expected to fail occasionally if the
transformer accesses primaryInput asynchronously, so it should throw a real
exception (probably StateError).

[Bob Nystrom, 2013/08/28 20:51:27]

Done.

+    return _node.primary.asset;
+  }
 
   Transform._(this._node, this._outputs);
 
@@ -59,6 +60,26 @@ class Transform {
   /// [AssetNotFoundException].
   Future<Asset> getInput(AssetId id) => _node.getInput(id);
 
+  /// A convenience method to the contents of the input with [id] as a string.
+  ///
+  /// This is equivalent to `getInput().readAsString()`.

[nweiz, 2013/08/28 19:29:43]

`getInput().readAsString()` is a little confusing, since [getInput] returns a
Future. Same below.

[Bob Nystrom, 2013/08/28 20:51:27]

Reworded a bit. I didn't want to do the full async code for it since it's
pointlessly verbose.

+  ///
+  /// If the asset was created from a [String] the original string is always
+  /// returned and [encoding] is ignored. Otherwise, the binary data of the
+  /// asset is decoded using [encoding], which defaults to [UTF8].
+  Future<String> readInputAsString(AssetId id, {Encoding encoding}) {
+    if (encoding == null) encoding = UTF8;

[Siggi Cherem (dart-lang), 2013/08/28 00:12:30]

why not use "encoding: UTF8" as default value above?

[Bob Nystrom, 2013/08/28 19:11:34]

If you do that, passing an explicit null will override the default value. That
breaks forwarding, so I always put the default value in the body.

+    return getInput(id).then((input) => input.readAsString(encoding: encoding));
+  }
+
+  /// A convenience method to the contents of the input with [id].
+  ///
+  /// This is equivalent to `getInput().read()`.
+  ///
+  /// If the asset was created from a [String], this returns its UTF-8 encoding.
+  Future<List<int>> readInput(AssetId id) =>
+      getInput(id).then((input) => input.read());

[nweiz, 2013/08/28 19:29:43]

[Asset.read] returns a Stream<List<int>>, not a Future<List<int>>. You could use
the [futureStream] function in pkg/scheduled_test/lib/src/utils.dart to just
have this return a Stream<List<int>>, though.

[Bob Nystrom, 2013/08/28 20:51:27]

Done.

+
   /// Stores [output] as the output created by this transformation.
   ///
   /// A transformation can output as many assets as it wants.