NAME

Text::Template::Simple - A simple template class mainly for web applications.

SYNOPSIS

use Text::Template::Simple;

my $template = Text::Template::Simple->new(
   globals => {
      foo  => 'bar'  , # define $foo
      bar  => ['baz'], # define @bar
      blah => {        # define %blah
         key => 'value',
      },
   },
);

my $result = $template->compile(
               'Hello <%$foo%>. Key is: <%$blah{key}%> and Your name is <%$name%>.',
               {
                  name => 'Burak',
               });
print $result;

DESCRIPTION

This module provides a simple and high level access to Text::Template interface. It also adds a PREPEND parameter to enable strict mode and define the variables before using them. If your perl version is smaller than 5.6; the vars pragma, and if it is greater; our function will be used to define variables in the template. Main purpose of this module is to setup that variable definiton code and initialize all variables if any of them has the value undef.

METHODS

new

The object constructor. Takes several parameters:

delimiters

The default delimiter set is: <% %>. You can pass your own delimiters as an arrayref:

Text::Template::Simple->new(
   delimiters => ['{', '}'],
)

global

You can define variables that are globally accessible by all templates.

Example:

$globals = {
      foo  => 'bar'  , # define $foo
      bar  => ['baz'], # define @bar
      blah => {        # define %blah
         key => 'value',
      },
};

Text::Template::Simple->new(
   globals => $globals,
)

dummy

This must be a dummy package/class name. The module will compile the template into this class. If you don't set it, the default class Text::Template::Simple::Dummy will be used.

extend

If this has a true value, you can use loop constructs in templates, instead of modifying the $OUT variable directly. However, there are some caveats. Here is a sample template:

<% foreach (qw[Perl SomeOtherLang]) { %>
   <% if ($_ =~ /perl/i) {%>
      $_ rules!\n
   <% } else { %>
      $_ sux!\n
   <% } %>
<%}%>

Which is nearly (because the whitespaces around the string is also included in the result of above template) equal to this regular template code:

<%
foreach (qw[Perl SomeOtherLang]) {
   if ($_ =~ /perl/i) {
      $OUT .= qq~$_ rules!\n~;
   } else {
      $OUT .= qq~$_ sux!\n~;
   }
}
%>

When you use the extended interface, be aware that you can not use templates inside the constructs. They are basically perl strings (i.e. they are not static template texts). So, you can use symbols like \n or \r or any variable directly, also any whitespace you put before or after the string will be printed too:

<% if ($_ =~ /perl/i) {%>
   $_ rules!\n
<% } %>

If there are some curlies that aren't balanced while parsing the template, you'll get this warning:

LOOP ERROR: %d unmatched curlies!

%d can be positive or negative. Negative value indicates that the parser closed an un-opened loop (i.e. you have an extra right curly or your loop start misses a left curly).

extend is disabled by default and behaviour is considered experimental.

Why extend?

Because I'm tired of writing this all the time:

$OUT .= qq~blah blah blah~;

this one seems more simple:

blah blah blah

debug

If set to a true value, interface will warn you about the template compiling process. Currently, it'll not give you any useful information unless you want to patch Text::Template::Simple.

Debugging is disabled by default.

compile TEMPLATE, PARAMS

Compiles the template into its final form. Takes two parameters. First parameter is the raw template code as a string and second is the parameters you can set. PARAMS must be a HASHREF.

my $result = $template->compile('Your name is {$name}.',
               {
                  name => 'Burak', # set $name
               });

BUGS

• Complete interface of Text::Template is not supported

• Parameter names can not start with minus

  Example: -dummy or -Dummy is unvalid. Use dummy or Dummy or DUMMY etc...

• Only single string data is accepted as a template text

  Filehandles and any other things are not supported. You must supply a single text parameter as the template code.

• SAFE, BROKEN_ARG and friends are not supported

  Many parameters of Text::Template are not supported.

• Extended interface has some issues

  When using extended interface, you have to use this style:

  <% if (condition) { %>
  foo
  <% } elsif (condition) { %>
  bar
  <% } else { %>
  baz
  <% } %>

  If you use curlies separately, you'll probably broke the code and get errors:

  <% if (condition) { %>
  foo
  <% } %>
  <% elsif (condition) { %>
  bar
  <% } %>
  <% else { %>
  baz
  <% } %>

  This is not a good style anyway (at least in my opinion). The other thing you must not do is putting comments or other things above loops:

  <% 
  # blah blah blah
  if (1) {
  %>
     blah
  <% } %>

  or

  <% 
  my $blah = 1;
  if ($blah) {
  %>
     blah
  <% } %>

  They'll break the current implementation. You can replace the ifs above with while, for and foreach. The same rules apply to all of them.

There may be many more... Please report if you find any bugs.

SEE ALSO

Text::Template.

AUTHOR

Burak Gürsoy, <burak@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2004-2005 Burak Gürsoy. All rights reserved.

LICENSE

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.6 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

cpanm Text::Template::Simple

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Text::Template::Simple