RedZone

RedZone is a lightweight C++ template engine with Jinja2-like syntax support. Inspired by microtemplates. This is the starting point for other languanges extensions (e.g. Python). Data exchange is provided via JSON protocol.

Build

To build RedZone library you should have installed GCC 4.9 as well as CMake tool. Execute this shell script:

$ git clone https://github.com/jcfromsiberia/RedZone && cd RedZone && mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. && make

Building Python extension

You'll need the same tools with Python dev package and Cython. Use -DBUILD_LANG_EXTENSION=python flag for cmake command:

$ cmake -DBUILD_LANG_EXTENSION=python .. && make

You'll find built RedZone.so python module in the build dir.

How to use?

There are equivalent examples for C++ and Python.

• main.cpp
• test.py

Link RedZone library to your application or library and use these following classes inside:

RedZone::Writer

This is an abstract class for output. It has only two pure virtual methods

• void write( std::string const & data )
• void flush()

There are obly two classes which implement this abstract class:

RedZone::FileWriter

Writes string data to file on disk. Constructor accepts a path to output file.

RedZone::FileWriter writer( "/tmp/out.html" );

RedZone::StringWriter

Writes string data to in-memory string. Constructor accepts a reference to certain string.

std::string out;
RedZone::FileWriter writer( out );

RedZone::Template and its derived ones

There is only one working class RedZone::FileTemplate to load a template from filesystem by path for the time being.

RedZone::FileTemplate tpl( "/tmp/test.tpl" );

This code creates reads file contents from the given path (e.g. /tmp/test.tpl), parses it and then creates a new RedZone::Template instance.

json11::Json

RedZone uses JSON protocol for storing the rendering context. To implement JSON protocol, I have used json11.

json11::Json json( json11::Json::parse( R"(
      {                                               
         "items": [                                   
           { "text": "Hello World!", "active": true },
           { "text": "Foo", "active": true },         
           { "text": "Bar", "active": false }         
         ],
         "numbers": {
            "first": 5,
            "second": 11,
            "third": true
         }  
      }                                               
       )", err ) );

RedZone::Context

Rendering context accepts json object-type instances only. You can not pass arrays or something else. RedZone::Template classes have render method to render the template with user context into a stream represented as pointer to Writer isntance.

RedZone::Context context( json ); 
tpl.renderToStream( &writer, &context);
context.setJson( anotherJson );

Also they have render method, which returns complete rendered output. It uses StringWriter inside.

std::string rendered = tpl.render( &context );

RedZone supports a primitive code evaluation support. It supports main expression operations like:

1. math expressions;
2. function calls;
3. string operations;
4. comparison operations.

You can use them in variable blocks; as bool condition in 'if' block; as container expression in for block.

So, having this markup in /tmp/test.tpl:

{% for item in items %}
    {% if item.active && length(item.text) == 3 %}
	<div class="active">{{ item.text }}</div>
    {% else  %}
	<div class="inactive">{{ item.text }}</div>
    {% endif  %}
{% endfor %}

// Testing expression parser
{{ "f" * 8 + "u" * 8 + "~" }} should be ffffffffuuuuuuuu~
{{upper("f"*8+"u"*8+"~")}} should be FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU~
{{ sin( 0 )}} should be 0
{{ cos( 0 ) }} should be 1
{{ length( [] ) }} should be 0
{{ length( [ 2, 4, { "s": 55 } ] ) }} should be 3
{{ length( { "key1": "value1", "key2": "value2" } ) }} should be 2
{{ 16 / 4 }} should be 4
{{ get( { "key1": "value1", "key2": "value2" }, "key2" ) }} should be value2
{{ get( numbers, "first" ) }} should be 5
{{ get( numbers, "second" ) }} should be 11
{{ get( numbers, "third" ) }} should be true
{{ get( numbers, "foo" ) }} should be null
{{ ( 2 + 2 ) * (2 + 2) }} should be 16

{% cache 5000 "TestCache" items %}{{ random(20, 100500) }}{% endcache %} should be {% cache 5000 "TestCache" items %}{{ random(20, 100500) }}{% endcache %} cached

and the context which is represented above , we will get this output:

    
        <div class="inactive">Hello World!</div>
    

    
        <div class="active">Foo</div>
    

    
        <div class="inactive">Bar</div>
    


// Testing expression parser
ffffffffuuuuuuuu~ should be ffffffffuuuuuuuu~
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU~ should be FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU~
0 should be 0
1 should be 1
0 should be 0
3 should be 3
2 should be 2
4 should be 4
value2 should be value2
5 should be 5
11 should be 11
true should be true
null should be null
16 should be 16

95199 should be 95199 cached

Detailed description

Functions

Binary operators

All operators are being executed in this order:

1. *, /
2. +, -

3. , <, ==, !=, <=, >=

4. &&, ||

In Python

Having built RedZone python module, you can use the above classes in your own Python scripts, excepting there is no Json class -- Python dict replaces it completely.

from RedZone import *

context = Context({                                               
"items": [                                   
      { "text": "Hello World!", "active": True },
      { "text": "Foo", "active": True },         
      { "text": "Bar", "active": False }         
],
"numbers": {
      "first": 5,
      "second": 11,
      "third": True
}
})
tpl = FileTemplate('test.tpl')

print tpl.render(context)

You get the same output.

In plans

• extend template syntax with template inheritance done
• make Cython extension to use RedZone from Python done
• add install/setup scripts
• add an ability to add custom functions in Python
• add an ability to add custom tags in Python