A simple initialization script to create vhosts.

init.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

# USAGE: sudo ./init.rb project_name path/to/web/root

# NOTE: This file must be run with root privileges (sudo).
# You must also give it exec permissions: chmod +x init.rb

# This should include the trailing slash
DEFAULT_ROOT = '/Users/dan/Sites/'
VHOST_FOLDER = '/etc/apache2/sites/'

if ARGV[0].nil? or ARGV[1].nil? then
  puts 'Usage: ./init.rb <project_name> <web_root>'
  exit
end

project_name = ARGV[0]

web_root = ARGV[1].chomp("/") + "/"
web_root = DEFAULT_ROOT + web_root unless web_root.index('/') == 0

vhost_template = <<vhost
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@foo.com
    DocumentRoot "#{web_root}"
    ServerName #{project_name}.lvh.me

    SetEnv ENVIRONMENT dev

    ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/#{project_name}-error_log"
    CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/#{project_name}-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>
<Directory #{web_root}>
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>
vhost

filename = "#{VHOST_FOLDER}#{project_name}.conf"

File.open(filename, 'w+') {|f| f.write(vhost_template) }

puts "#{filename} has been created."
puts 'Restarting apache...'

# Restart Apache
exec('sudo apachectl restart')

puts 'Apache Restarted'

nice!

Super-useful, thank you for sharing!
I added this to my ~/.profile in order to call init.rb regardless of my current working directory:

alias init='sudo ~/init.rb'

This allows you to call the script from anywhere like that:

init project_name web_root

Thought you might find this useful.