Normal Template
by gmosx, at 25 Jan 2010In this vein, I designed a new template engine, called Normal Template. I consider this an evolution of JSON-Template concepts that works better in practice. Here are some benefits:
- Separate 'if' command (required in practice)
- Replaced {} interpolation with {=..}, safer in practice, more readable
- A subset of XPath is used to navigate the data dictionary along with a cursor model (select)
- Abbreviations for tags (s for select, r for reduce, etc)
- Meta templates and static includes
- Compiles to a javascript function for extra performance
- Improved syntax error checks and reporting
For more information, please consult the detailed docs. To wet your appetite, here is an example:
template.html:
<html>
<h1>Hello {=name}</h1>
{:select profile}
<p>
{=age}<br/>
{=gender}<br/>
</p>
{/:select}
<p>Your age is {=profile/age}</p>
<ul>
{:reduce articles}
<li>{=title} - {=count}</li>
{:else}
<li>No articles found</li>
{/:reduce}
</ul>
{:if admin}
You have admin rights
{:else}
You don't have admin rights
{/:if}
</html>
template.js:
var data = { // the data dictionary in JSON format
name: "George",
profile: {
age: 34,
gender: "M"
},
articles: [
{ title: "Hello world", count: 34 },
{ title: "Another article", count: 23 },
{ title: "The final", count: 7 }
],
admin: true
}
It seems as simple enough as it should be, robust and readable.
I'll make a python port and include it in porcupine since it still lacks a template engine.
Anyone would like to try a Ruby/Java port?