NAME

simple-template - A simple templating system.

SYNOPSIS

simple-template [OPTION]... [INPUT FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

simple-template is a simple templating system written in Perl. It was designed for creating and maintaining small web sites with a consistent look while offering enough power to support special cases. It takes a template file annotated with Perl code (using Text::Template) and generates output based on an input file written in Perl.

Features

Simple
A single dependency (Text::Template) which is included in the master distribution
Uses Perl for the template files and the input files.

Limitations

Does not understand maintaining a heirarchy of files.
Limited error reporting for invalid template files and input files.
Use requires basic Perl knowledge.

OPTIONS

simple-template accepts these arguments:

-h, --help: Help information
--template=PATH_TO_FILE: Specifies the template file to use. Defaults to "template.html"
--dst=PATH_TO_DIR: Specifies directory to write output files to. Defaults to "output"
--delim-start=DELIM: Delimiter for entering code, defaults to "{"
--delim-end=DELIM: Delimiter for exiting code, defaults to "}"
--delim=DELIMSTART,DELIMEND: Delimiters for entering and exiting code. Identical to --delim-start=DELIMSTART --delim-end=DELIMEND. There must be exactly one comma, separating the two delimiters.

TEMPLATE FILES

For details on the template file, see Text::Template. http://search.cpan.org/~mjd/Text-Template-1.46/lib/Text/Template.pm

But in short:

Most text will be written to the output file unmodified.
Anything inside of { matching braces } will be evaluated as Perl code. The last thing evaluated will be inserted into the output.
Inside of the Perl code, you can append to $OUT to add text to the output.

Variables available to the template:

Any variables set in the input file are available.
The contents of __DATA__ are available as $DATA.
The path to the input file is available as $SRC_FILE.
The path to the output file is available as $DST_FILE.
The filename only of the output file is available as $BASENAME.

See template.html for an example template.

INPUT FILES

The input files are valid Perl code. Don't bother with the #!/usr/bin/perl, don't bother with warnings, don't bother making it a valid module. Just set the variables you want visible to the template. As a special case the __DATA__ is available as $DATA to the template. Note that the __DATA__ detection is special cased; it literally looks for the first "[\r\n]+__DATA__[\r\n]+" and grabs everything afterward. This is slightly different from Perl's usual behavior, which will ignore __DATA__ in some circumstances.

Input filenames must end with ".src". The created output file will have the same name with the last .src removed.

See index.html.src for an example input file.

TEXT::TEMPLATE

As originally distributed, this software includes a copy of Text::Template. This is for convenience. You'll probably want to install your own copy to ensure that it's up to date. You can probably find it at http://search.cpan.org/search?query=Text%3A%3ATemplate&mode=all . install-dependencies.sh may be helpful in this process.

EXAMPLES

simple-template index.html.src: Fill out the template file template.html using the variables set in index.html.src, writing the output into output/index.html.
simple-template --template=form-letter.txt --dst=to-send/ *.txt.src: For each file that ends with .txt.src, extract the variables and fill out the template file form-letter.txt. Write the output into individual files in to-send/, using the same filename as the input but with ".src" removed.

AUTHORS

Alan De Smet

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either:

a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version, or

b) The "Artistic License 2.0" as published by The Perl Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License or Artistic License for more details.

AlanDeSmet/simple-template