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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FREEMARKER-75?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=16185750#comment-16185750
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Daniel Dekany commented on FREEMARKER-75:
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Regarding that {{?as}} should replace an existing variable. Maybe the sane way 
of combining this with FM2 is that {{?as(x)}} declares a nested content 
variable (aka a loop variable), similarly to {{#list xs as x}} does. Otherwise 
the scope is not obvious, like, if you have {{$\{expensiveExpression?as(x)\}}} 
inside {{#function}}, will {{x}} be a local variable, or a template namespace 
variable? (In FM3 I plan to use {{#var}} and {{#set}}, where the scope of the 
last depends on where {{#var}} was.) Anyway, this last doesn't exactly helps 
the readability of the template ("Where does x coming from?" Looks for 
{{#assign}}-s for no avail...), so I probably wouldn't do that it in FM3 
either. The case where {{?as(x)}} declares a nested content variable has a 
strong use case with {{#if}}, and the scope of the variable is restricted, 
which hopefully makes this less confusing.

> New built-in ?as("variableName") to store the left-hand operand to a variable.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: FREEMARKER-75
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FREEMARKER-75
>             Project: Apache Freemarker
>          Issue Type: New Feature
>          Components: engine
>    Affects Versions: 2.3.26-incubating
>            Reporter: Ondra Žižka
>
> When coding templates, one often runs into a situation like this:
> {code}
> <#if (foo.bar.baz.expensiveCall())!false >
>      ${ foo.bar.baz.expensiveCall() }
> </#if>
> {code}
> Solving it with currently available things is something like 
> {code}
> <#assign cached = (foo.bar.baz.expensiveCall())! >
> <#if cached?has_content() >
>      Hello, ${ cached }
> </#if>
> {code}
> In short, passing around the information that a value could not be obtained 
> is a bit cumbersome.
> What I suggest is a built-in that would capture a value of an expression on 
> the left to a new variable and pass it along.
> {code}
> <#if (foo.bar.baz.expensiveCall())!?as("cached")?has_content >
>      Hello, ${ cached }
> </#if>
> {code}
> The benefits is that there is need to compute the expression twice or do the 
> assignment.
> Speaking of simplifying, the expression above could also be simplified by 
> another built-in, a "reversed" {{then()}}.  (For that I will file another 
> jira.)
> {code}
> ${ "Hi, "?if( expensive()?as("cached"), "") + cached }     // For conditional 
> prefixes
> ${ expensive()?as("cached")!false + ", good bye!"?if(cached) }     // For 
> conditional suffixes
> ${ "Hi, ${expensive()?as("cached")!false}, again!"?if(cached) }     // For 
> conditional surrounding
> {code}
> The new {{?as()}} built-in could be also used for a more convenient way of 
> assigning wile printing:
> {code}
> ${"Hi ${user}"?as("greet")}.
> ${ greet }, again.
> {code}
> I hope my explanation does make sense.
> Thanks for considering. 



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