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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/VELOCITY-704?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12675452#action_12675452
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Nathan Bubna commented on VELOCITY-704:
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I'm not sure i understand why $foreach.stop() needs any more validation than
any other reference. #return (and #break if modified as you describe) only
needs the extra parse-time validation because they throw an exception if used
in improper contexts. Admittedly, i may be blind to the drawback since i don't
use or develop a smart Velocity editor.
Still, if it's just a directive solution you want and you're willing to have
just one instead of three, then perhaps we should combine the concepts and have
the new #stop take a control object as an optional argument:
#stop - stops all merge activity
#stop($foreach) - stops just the current #foreach
#stop($foreach.parent) - stops all the way up to the parent #foreach
Then it doesn't look like we're emitting content, is totally VTL-centric, has
all the flexibility and explicitness of stop(), and can even be validated at
parse time. The parse-time validation is possible because the naming of
control objects is only dependent on velocity.properties, not runtime
contextual info.
If this were to be the direction we took, then it can also easily take
advantage of my imminent commit for this case. We'd just move the stop()
method to #stop or leave it in the Control class and make it protected so only
#stop can call it, not templates.
Would that be a better solution for you?
> VTL Simplicity - "Control" objects
> ----------------------------------
>
> Key: VELOCITY-704
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/VELOCITY-704
> Project: Velocity
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Components: Engine
> Reporter: Nathan Bubna
> Assignee: Nathan Bubna
> Fix For: 2.0
>
>
> In the discussion for VELOCITY-680, Claude suggested the addition of what i'm
> calling "control" objects as a solution. These would have the same name as
> the block directive or macro to which they belong. At a minimum, these
> would provide get(key), set(key, value) and stop() methods to control the
> reference scoping and execution of the block to which they belong.
> Directives could extend the basic control object to provide additional
> functions, such as index() and hasNext() for #foreach. Here's some examples:
> #foreach( $user in $users )
> $user#if( $foreach.hasNext ), #end
> #if( $foreach.count > 10 ) $foreach.stop() #end
> #end
> #macro( foo $bar )
> blah blah #if( $bar == 'bar' ) $foo.stop() #end
> #set( $foo.woogie = 'woogie' )
> $foo.woogie
> #end
> #foreach( $item in $list )
> #set( $outer = $foreach )
> #foreach( $attr in $item.attributes )
> #if ( $attr == $null ) $outer.stop()#end
> #end
> #end
> ------foo.vm---------
> blah blah $template.stop() blah
> ------------------------
> #define( $foo )
> blah blah $define.stop() blah
> #end
> This could allow us to greatly simplify all sorts of things. We could remove
> the #break, #stop and #return directives. We would no longer need to have
> "local" contexts for foreach loops or macros; instead users could set and get
> local variables directly in the provided namespace. All else would be
> global. This may even cut down our internal code complexity a fair bit.
> It'll certainly obviate the need for several configuration properties and
> internal contexts. Everything becomes much more explicit, obvious and
> robust. I also don't think it looks ugly. :)
> We would, of course, have to make sure that the StopExceptions thrown by
> stop() aren't wrapped into MethodInvocationExceptions. We'd have to make the
> directives clean up their control when done rendering, and if they're nested
> in a directive of the same type, then they should save and restore the
> reference to the parent control. We'd also have to figure out a good
> default name to give the control objects for the top-level control object,
> and whether it would be different than the name of the control object used
> during a #parse call. $template? $parse? $velocity? If we wanted to use
> $template--which i think works well for both top-level and #parse--then we'd
> probably have to make it configurable, since that's likely to conflict. And
> if we make that configurable, i suppose we may as well make it configurable
> for the others too.
> I'm struggling to think of any real downside to this. Most of the replaced
> features (implicit macro localscope, #stop, #break, $velocityHasNext) are
> either not default behavior or are new features. I'd wager that most people
> would only have to change $velocityCount to $foreach.count. Even that's no
> big deal, since this would be for a major version change. , The worst i can
> think of is the fact that for a couple of these controls it would mean a few
> more keystrokes. Considering all the gains in extensibility, explicitness
> and simplification (for us and users), i think it's worth a few keystrokes.
> What do you guys think?
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