combyne

Stable: 0.7.1

No dependencies. Can be loaded as a browser global, AMD module, and Node module. Works with Browserify. Can be installed via NPM or Bower.

Combyne works great with:

• Express
• Browserify
• AMD

For when you're stuck and need help:

Install.

Node:

npm install combyne

Bower:

bower install combyne

Getting started.

Node.

Require in your source:

var combyne = require("combyne");

AMD.

// Configure the path if necessary.
require({
  paths: {
    combyne: "path/to/combyne"
  }
});

// Use in a module.
define(["combyne"], function(combyne) {});

There is also an AMD plugin for easier consumption and building:

https://github.com/tbranyen/combyne-amd-loader

Browserify.

combynify is a browserify transform plugin to pre-compile combyne templates.

In your code:

var template = require("./template.combyne");
var data = { ... }

template.render(data)

Install combynify and browserify it:

npm install --save-dev combynify
browserify -t combynify main.js > bundle.js

Once the template is precompiled, there is no dependency on the combyne engine.

Browser global.

Include the latest stable in your markup:

<script src="path/to/dist/combyne.js"></script>

Compatibility.

Combyne is written in ES5 and contains polyfills to provide support back to IE 7. These polyfills are omitted in the dist/combyne.js file, but exist in the dist/combyne.legacy.js file. Use this if you are developing/testing with older IE.

Basic usage.

var tmpl = combyne("hello {{msg}}!");
tmpl.render({ msg: "world" });

// => hello world!

Features.

Combyne works by parsing your template into an AST. This provides mechanisms for intelligent compilation and optimization. The template is converted to JavaScript and invoked upon calling render with data.

Security.

By default all templates are encoded to avoid possible issues arising from XSS attacks. This is specifically applied to properties and you can avoid this by using the raw property style: {{{ value }}}. This is very similar to Mustache.

While using this template engine in the browser, it is important to note that you should not trust unknown values to render unencoded. The recommendation is to forget it exists while writing templates in the browser, unless you know what you're doing and have a valid use case.

View this XSS (Cross Site Scripting) Prevention Cheat Sheet for more information.

Comments.

Comments are useful for ignoring anything between the open and close. They can be nested.

var tmpl = combyne("test {%-- not parsed --%}");
tmpl.render();

// => test

Custom delimiters.

If you are not happy with the default Mustache-like syntax, you can trivially change the delimiters to suit your needs. You may only change the delimiters at a global level, because templates are compiled immediately after invoking the combyne function.

// This sets the delimiters, and applies to all templates.
combyne.settings.delimiters = {
  START_PROP: "[[",
  END_PROP: "]]"
};

var tmpl = combyne("[[msg]]", { msg: "hello world" });

tmpl.render();
// => hello world

Defaults:

START_RAW:  "{{{"
END_RAW:    "}}}"
START_PROP: "{{"
END_PROP:   "}}"
START_EXPR: "{%"
END_EXPR:   "%}"
COMMENT:    "--"
FILTER:     "|"

Template variables.

var template = "{{foo}}";
var context = { foo: "hello" };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "hello"

Variables can be literal values, functions, or even objects.

Passing arguments to a function.

var template = "{{toUpper 'hi'}}";
var context = { toUpper: function(val) { return val.toUpperCase(); } };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "HI"

Using filters on variables.

var template = "{{foo|reverse}}";
var context = { foo: "hello" };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

tmpl.registerFilter("reverse", function(val) {
  return val.split("").reverse().join("");
});

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "olleh"

Passing arguments to filters.

You may find that the property value is not enough information for the filter function, in which case you can send additional arguments.

var tmpl = combyne("{{ code|highlight 'javascript' }}");

tmpl.registerFilter("highlight", function(code, language) {
  // Magic highlight function that takes code and language.
  return highlight(code, language);
});

Chaining filters on variables.

var template = "{{foo|reverse|toUpper}}";
var context = { foo: "hello" };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

tmpl.registerFilter("reverse", function(val) {
  return val.split("").reverse().join("");
});

tmpl.registerFilter("toUpper", function(val) {
  return val.toUpperCase();
});

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "OLLEH"

Conditionals.

Instead of being logic-less, combyne doesn't make any assumptions and allows you to do things like if/elsif/else with simple conditionals, such as if something == somethingElse or if not something. All data types will be coerced to Strings except for Numbers.

var template = "{%if not foo%}why not?{%endif%}";
var context = { foo: false };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "why not?"

or a more complicated example...

var template = "{%if foo == 'hello'%}Hi!{%else%}bye...{%endif%}";
var context = { foo: "hello" };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "Hi!"

elsif is also supported:

var template = "{%if foo == ''%}goodbye!{%elsif foo == 'hello'%}hello!{%endif%}";
var context = { foo: "hello" };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "hello!"

You can also pass conditionals through filters to do more complex logic:

var tmpl = combyne("{%if hello|upper|reverse == 'OLLEH'%}hello{%endif%}");

tmpl.registerFilter('upper', function(value) {
  return value.toUpperCase();
});

tmpl.registerFilter("reverse", function(value) {
  return value.split("").reverse().join("");
});

var output = tmpl.render({ hello: 'hello'});
/// output == "hello"

It also works with properties that need to be not encoded

var tmpl = combyne("{%if {{{hello}}} == '<>'%}hello{%endif%}");

var output = tmpl.render({ hello: '<>'});
/// output == "hello";

Iterating arrays.

Also works on array-like objects: arguments and NodeList.

var template = "{%each foo%}{{.}} {%endeach%}";
var context = { foo: [1,2,3,4] };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "1 2 3 4 "

You can also pass the value into a filter before iterating over it

var template = "{%each foo|upper%}{{.}} {%endeach%}";
var context = { foo: ["a", "b", "c"] };

template.registerFilter("upper", function(array) {
  return array.map(function (entry) {
    return entry.toUpperCase();
  });
});

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "A B C"

You can even use filters on the root object by either specifying '.' or leaving it blank

var template = "{%each .|upper%}{{.}} {%endeach%}";
var context = ["a", "b", "c"];

template.registerFilter("upper", function(array) {
  return array.map(function (entry) {
    return entry.toUpperCase();
  });
});

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "A B C"

Iterating an array of objects shorthand.

If you pass an array of objects to Combyne, you may iterate it via a shorthand:

var template = "{%each%}{{foo}} {%endeach%}";
var context = [{ foo: 1 }, { foo: 2 }, { foo: 3 }, { foo: 4 }];

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "1 2 3 4 "

Change the iterated identifer within loops.

var template = "{%each arr as val%}{{val}}{%endeach%}";
var context = { arr: [1,2,3] };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output = "123"

Iterating objects.

var template = "{%each fruits as val key%}the {{key}} is {{val}}{%endeach%}";
var context = {
  fruits: {
    apple: "green"
  }
};

var tmpl = combyne(template);

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "the apple is green"

Partials.

var template = "{{foo}} {%partial bar%}";
var context = { foo: "hello" };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

tmpl.registerPartial("bar", combyne("{{name}}", {
  name: "john"
}));

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "hello john"

Pass template data to partial.

If you need to pass the template's data to the partial, simply use the magic operator ..

var template = "{{foo}} {%partial bar .%}";
var context = { foo: "hello", name: "carl" };

var tmpl = combyne(template);

tmpl.registerPartial("bar", combyne("{{name}}"));

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "hello carl"

If you need to manipulate the data passed to any partial, you must create a function on the parent template's data that returns an object or array that will be used by the nested partial.

You can even pass arguments along to that function to use.

An example follows:

var template = "{%partial bar showName 'carl'%}";
var context = {
  showName: function(name) {
    return { displayName: name };
  }
};

var tmpl = combyne(template);

tmpl.registerPartial("bar", combyne("hello {{displayName}}"));

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "hello carl"

If you wish to filter the data passed to the partial you can supply a filter.

var people = { carl: { knownAs: 'Carl, the Duke' } };
var template = "{%partial bar people|find 'carl'%}";
var context = {
  find: function(name) {
    return people[name];
  }
};

var tmpl = combyne(template);

tmpl.registerPartial("bar", combyne("hello {{knownAs}}"));

var output = tmpl.render(context);
/// output == "hello Carl, the Duke"

Template inheritance.

When using a framework that handles rendering for you and you wish to inject your template into a different template (maybe a layout) in a given region you can express this through template inheritance expressions.

Illustrated below is a typical use case for this feature:

var template = "{%extend layout as content%}<h1>{{header}}</h1>{%endextend%}";
var context = { header: "Home page" };

var page = combyne(template);

// Register the layout template into the page template.
page.registerPartial("layout", combyne("<body>{%partial content%}</body>"));

var output = page.render(context);
/// output == "<body><h1>Home page</h1></body>"

The context object you pass at the page.render line will be propagated to the partial template. This means that you can optionally pass a nested object structure like:

var context = {
  header: "My site",

  page: {
    header: "Home page"
  }
};

// Pass the page object to the page template, restricting what it has access
// to.
var layout = "<title>{{header}}</title><body>{%partial content page%}</body>";

// Register it in the partial.
page.registerPartial("layout", combyne(layout));

var output = page.render(context);
/// output == "<title>My site</title><body><h1>Home page</h1></body>"

Unit tests.

There are many ways to run the unit tests as this library can operate in various environments.

Browser

Open test/index.html in your web browser.

Node

Run the tests inside the Node runtime and within PhantomJS:

grunt test

This will run the tests against the AMD source, the built modern dist/combyne.js, and the built legacy dist/combyne.legacy.js files.

Continuous testing

To keep the PhantomJS tests running continuously, run:

grunt karma:watch

The tests will automatically run whenever files change.

Code coverage

If you run the tests through Karma, a test/coverage directory will be created containing folders that correspond with the environment where the tests were run.

If you are running the defaults you should see something that looks like:

.
└── coverage
    ├── Chrome 33.0.1750 (Linux)
    └── PhantomJS 1.9.7 (Linux)

Inside PhantomJS contains the HTML output that can be opened in a browser to inspect the source coverage from running the tests.