perrin 01/08/23 10:37:55
Modified: features tmpl-cmp.html
Log:
Updated version, added info on Mason/Embperl OO differences, added URLs.
Revision Changes Path
1.2 +45 -26 modperl-site/features/tmpl-cmp.html
Index: tmpl-cmp.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/cvs/modperl-site/features/tmpl-cmp.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -r1.1 -r1.2
--- tmpl-cmp.html 2001/08/01 03:35:13 1.1
+++ tmpl-cmp.html 2001/08/23 17:37:55 1.2
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
<TITLE>Choosing a Templating System</TITLE>
</HEAD>
-<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff">
+<BODY>
<A NAME="__index__"></A>
<!-- INDEX BEGIN -->
@@ -76,7 +76,8 @@
<P>
<H1><A NAME="choosing a templating system">Choosing a Templating System</A></H1>
<P>by Perrin Harkins</P>
-<P>Version 0.9<P>
+<P>version 1.0</P>
+<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="introduction">Introduction</A></H1>
<P>Go on, admit it: you've written a templating system. It's okay,
@@ -208,7 +209,7 @@
always cranks up the flame on web development mailing lists.</P>
<P>Some systems use in-line Perl statements. They may provide some extra
semantics, like Embperl's operators for specifying whether the code's
-output should be displayed or Mason's <%init> sections for specifying
+output should be displayed or Mason's <CODE><%init></CODE> sections for
specifying
when the code gets run, but at the end of the day your templates are
written in Perl.</P>
<P>Other systems provide a specialized mini-language instead of (or in
@@ -258,16 +259,16 @@
<% } %></PRE>
<P>And now Template Toolkit:</P>
<PRE>
- [% USE product(sku=bar1234) %]</PRE>
+ [% USE product(sku=bar1234) %]
+</PRE>
<PRE>
+
[% IF product.isbn %]
It's a book!
[% ELSE %]
It's NOT a book!
- [% END %]
-</PRE>
+ [% END %]</PRE>
<PRE>
-
[% FOREACH item = product.related %]
You might also enjoy [% item.name %].
[% END %]</PRE>
@@ -427,10 +428,11 @@
flexibility and power before settling on this simple approach.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="html::mason">HTML::Mason</A></H2>
+<P><A HREF="http://www.masonhq.com/";>http://www.masonhq.com/</A></P>
<P>Mason has been around for a few years now, and has built up a loyal
following. It was originally created as a Perl clone of some of the
most interesting features from Vignette StoryServer, but has since
-become it's own unique animal. It comes from a publishing background,
+become its own unique animal. It comes from a publishing background,
and includes features oriented towards splitting up pages into
re-useable chunks, or ``components.''</P>
<P>Mason uses in-line Perl with a compilation approach, but has a feature
@@ -451,17 +453,20 @@
from the values passed in the URI query string.</P>
<P>While the documentation mostly demonstrates a callback execution
model, it is possible to use Mason in a pipeline style. This can be
-accomplished in various ways, including designating components as
-``autohandlers'' which run before anything else for requests within a
-certain directory structure. An autohandler could do some processing
-and set up data for a display template which only includes minimal
-in-line Perl. There is also support for an object-oriented site
-approach, applying concepts like inheritance to the site directory
-structure. For example, the component at /store/book/ might inherit a
-standard layout from the component at /store/, but override the
-background color and navigation bar. Then /store/music/ can do the
-same, with a different color. This can be a very powerful paradigm
-for developing large sites.</P>
+accomplished in various ways, including building special components
+called ``autohandlers'' which run before anything else for requests
+within a certain directory tree. An autohandler could do some
+processing and set up data for a display template which only includes
+minimal in-line Perl. There is also support for an object-oriented
+site approach, applying concepts like inheritance to the site
+directory structure. For example, the autohandler component at
+/store/book/ might inherit a standard layout from the autohandler at
+/store/, but override the background color and navigation bar. Then
+/store/music/ can do the same, with a different color. This can be a
+very powerful paradigm for developing large sites. Note that this
+inheritance is only supported at the level of methods defined in
+autohandler components. You can't override the component
+/store/foo.html with another one at /store/book/foo.html.</P>
<P>Mason's approach to debugging is to create ``debug files'' which run
Mason outside of a web server environment, providing a fake web
request and activating the debugger. This can be helpful if you're
@@ -481,6 +486,7 @@
helpful user community go a long way.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="html::embperl">HTML::Embperl</A></H2>
+<P><A HREF="http://perl.apache.org/embperl/";>http://perl.apache.org/embperl/</A></P>
<P>Embperl makes its language choice known up front: embedded perl. It
is one of the most popular in-line Perl templating tools and has been
around longer than most of the others. It has a solid reputation for
@@ -512,9 +518,12 @@
toggled on and off).</P>
<P>Embperl includes something called EmbperlObject, which allows you to
apply OO concepts to your site hierarchy in a similar way to the
-inheritance features mentioned for Mason, above. This is a very
-convenient way to code sites with styles that vary by area, and is
-worth checking out.</P>
+autohandler and inheritance features of Mason, mentioned above. This
+is a very convenient way to code sites with styles that vary by area,
+and is worth checking out. EmbperlObject includes the ability to do
+overrides on a file level. This means that you can have a directory
+like /store/music which overrides specific templates and inherits the
+rest from a parent directory.</P>
<P>One drawback of older versions of Embperl was the necessity to use
built-in replacements for most of Perl's control structures like ``if''
and ``foreach'' when they are being wrapped around non-Perl sections.
@@ -540,6 +549,7 @@
provides performance improvements.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="apache::axkit">Apache::AxKit</A></H2>
+<P><A HREF="http://axkit.org/";>http://axkit.org/</A></P>
<P>AxKit is the first mod_perl page generation system to be built from the
ground up around XML. Technically, AxKit itself is not a templating
tool but rather a framework for stringing together different modules
@@ -562,8 +572,8 @@
XPath functions for querying an XML document and manipulating the
retrieved data. XPathScript can also be used in a declarative
fashion, specifying the formatting of particular elements in the XML
-input. For example this snippet will change all <foo> tags in an XML
-document to BAR in the output::</P>
+input. For example this snippet will change all <CODE><foo></CODE> tags
+in an XML document to BAR in the output::</P>
<PRE>
<%
$t->{'foo'}{pre} = 'BAR';
@@ -599,6 +609,7 @@
languages and tools.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="apache::asp">Apache::ASP</A></H2>
+<P><A HREF="http://www.apache-asp.org/";>http://www.apache-asp.org/</A></P>
<P>Apache::ASP started out as a port of Microsoft's Active Server Pages
technology, and its basic design still follows that model. It uses
in-line Perl with a compilation approach, and provides a set of simple
@@ -639,10 +650,12 @@
author, has reported much better results from Samba file-sharing than
from NFS.) This may be an issue for large-scale server clusters,
which usually rely on a relational database for network storage of
-sessions. Support database storage of sessions is planned for a
-future release.</P>
+sessions. Support for database storage of sessions is planned in a
+future release. In the meantime, instructions are provided for
+hooking up to Apache::Session.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="text::template">Text::Template</A></H2>
+<P><A
HREF="http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Text-Template";>http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Text-Template</A></P>
<P>This module has become the de facto standard general purpose
templating module on CPAN. It has an easy interface and thorough
documentation. The examples in the docs show a pipeline execution
@@ -672,6 +685,7 @@
e-mails, PDFs, etc.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="template toolkit">Template Toolkit</A></H2>
+<P><A HREF="http://template-toolkit.org/";>http://template-toolkit.org/</A></P>
<P>One of the more recent additions to the templating scene, Template
Toolkit is a very flexible mini-language system. It has a complete
set of directives for working with data, including loops and
@@ -744,6 +758,7 @@
collection of documents.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="html::template">HTML::Template</A></H2>
+<P><A
HREF="http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=HTML-Template";>http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=HTML-Template</A></P>
<P>HTML::Template is a popular module among those looking to use a
mini-language rather than in-line Perl. It uses a simple set of tags
which allow looping (even on nested data structures) and conditionals
@@ -775,6 +790,7 @@
<P>And now, a few honorable mentions:</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="html_tree">HTML_Tree</A></H2>
+<P><A
HREF="http://homepage.mac.com/pauljlucas/software/html_tree/";>http://homepage.mac.com/pauljlucas/software/html_tree/</A></P>
<P>As mentioned earlier, HTML Tree uses a fairly unique method of
templating: it loads in an HTML page, parses it to a DOM, and then
programmatically modifies the contents of nodes. This allows it to
@@ -785,18 +801,21 @@
is ``HTML_Tree'', not ``HTML::Tree''.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="apache::xpp">Apache::XPP</A></H2>
+<P><A
HREF="http://opensource.cnation.com/projects/XPP/";>http://opensource.cnation.com/projects/XPP/</A></P>
<P>XPP is an in-line Perl system that compiles to bytecode. Although it
is a perfectly good implementation, it has little to differentiate it
except for an easy mechanism to define new HTML-like tags which can be
used to replace in-line code in templates.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="eperl">ePerl</A></H2>
+<P><A
HREF="http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Apache-ePerl";>http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Apache-ePerl</A></P>
<P>Possibly the first module to embed Perl code in a text or HTML file,
ePerl is still a viable option in the form of Apache::ePerl. It
caches compiled bytecode in memory to achieve solid performance, and
some people find it refreshingly simple to use.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="cgi::fasttemplate">CGI::FastTemplate</A></H2>
+<P><A
HREF="http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=CGI-FastTemplate";>http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=CGI-FastTemplate</A></P>
<P>This module takes a minimalistic approach to templating, which makes
it unusually well suited to use in CGI programs. It parses templates
with a single regular expression and does not support anything in
