micromustache

#MicroMustache

A stripped down version of the {{mustache}} template engine with JavaScript. It covers the most important use case for Mustache: replacing variables with their names. MicroMustache doesn't support partials, array and nested objects. It is about 40% faster than Mustache.js and 93% smaller! If all you do is variable name replacement, you can easily cut that overhead.

[Download Development Edition] (https://raw.github.com/hanifbbz/micromustache/master/dist/micromustache.js) - 2,65 KB

[Download Production Edition] (https://raw.github.com/hanifbbz/micromustache/master/dist/micromustache.min.js) - 0.5 KB

Or use [npm] (https://npmjs.org/package/micromustache):

npm install micromustache

#Features

• Tiny (less than half a kilo byte)
• Super-Quick (just one function call over the native browser layer) [run the comparison] (http://jsperf.com/micromustache-vs-mustache)
• Super efficient (optimum use of CPU, RAM and your memory bandwidth)
• Familiar to Mustache users
• No dependency (No need for JQuery, Underscore, Mustache, etc)
• Cross-browser compatible
• Full test coverage with Qunit. [run tests] (https://rawgit.com/hanifbbz/micromustache/master/test/micromustache-test.html)
• Consistent with Mustache.js so it is a drop-in replacement for Mustache or Handlebars
• Supports the following value types: string, number, boolean, function. If the value is a function, it'll be called with the name of the variable as its parameter and the resulting value will be used.
• The render(), to_html() and compile() functions are supported from Mustache.js
• It's just one function. You can drop it into your code or paste it as an AMD module
• Works in browser and node.js
• Ready to be used as AMD or just copy/paste into your own code
• Clean code that passes [jshint] (http://www.jshint.com/)
• Made in Sweden

#Limitations

MicroMustache achieves its fast speed and light weight by dropping the following features from Mustache:

• Array iterations: {{# ...}}
• Partials: {{> ...}}
• Objects as values: {{ objName.propertyName }}
• Arrays as values: {{ objName[propertyName] }}
• Inverted selection {{^ ...}}
• Comments: {{! ...}}
• HTML sanitization: {{{ propertyName }}}
• Custom delimiters: <% ... %> instead of {{ ... }}

#How to use

MicroMustache is pretty similar to Mustache so if you know how to use Mustache, you can easily replace it with MicroMustache without any code change.

var person = {
  first: "Alex",
  last: "Ewerlöf"
};

//The render function accepts two parameters: the template and the object that contains a list of key-values to be replaced in template.
var output = MicroMustache.render("MicroMustache is created by {{first}} {{ last }}", person);
//output = "MicroMustache is created by Alex Ewerlöf"

Alternatively you can compile the template and get a function that can be used multiple times:

var templateEngine = MicroMustache.compile("MicroMustache is created by {{first}} {{ last }}");
output = templateEngine(person);
//output = "MicroMustache is created by Alex Ewerlöf"
output = templateEngine({first:'Albert',last:'Einstein'});
//output = "MicroMustache is created by Albert Einstein"

It is easy to access array elements:

var fruits = [ "orange", "apple", "lemon" ];

var output = MicroMustache.render("I like {{0}}, {{1}} and {{2}}", fruits);
//output = "I like orange, apple and lemon"

##Functions

The following functions from Mustache.js are supported:

MicroMustache.render(template,view);//renders a template based on the data in the view object and returns the rendered string
MicroMustache.to_html(template,view);//same as render
MicroMustache.compile(template);//returns a function that accepts the view object and spits out the rendered string

Using as an AMD module

MicroMustache doesn't have any assumption about how it is used. If you want to use it as an AMD module, just copy/paste the contents of [micromustache.js] (https://raw.github.com/hanifbbz/micromustache/master/dist/micromustache.js) and replace the first line of code from:

var MicroMustache = (function () { to define(function () { and the last line of code from })(); to });.

Then you can easily use it like:

require( 'MicroMustache', function ( MicroMustache ) {
    alert(MicroMustache.render('{{var}}',{var:'val'}));
});

For more examples see the micromustache-test.js inside the test directory above.

#Algorithm

The algorithm behind MicroMustache is rather simple. But for the sake of clarity, here is what the render() function does:

• Search the code for all occurrences of {{...}}
• Lookup a key inside the provided view object that matches what is between {{ and }}
• If the value is a number, boolean or string, replace the {{...}} with the value
• If the value is a function, call it passing what is between {{ and }} and replace the {{...}} with the return of the function
• If the value is an object, array or null, (or anything else) just remove the {{...}} part

#Build

If you want to modify the code, here is how to do it.

1. Install Node.js (hence npm)
2. Clone this repository and go to the directory you cloned it
3. Run npm install
4. Do your changes and run the tests. When you are happy go to the next step.
5. Run gulp and if there's no issue, it should make two new javascript files in the dist directory.