A quick concept of a pythonic templating language based on Zen Coding, with inspiration from HAML and SASS.

#### Template (proposed, unnamed language)

doctype(5)

html>head

style('my_stylesheet.css')

script('my_script.js')

title= {{ title }}

body>div.container

navbar(main_menu_links)

def navbar(links):

div.navbar>ul>li.navbar-link*?>iterlinks(main_menu_links)

#### Output (HTML)

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<title>My Page Title</title>

</head>

<body>

<ul>

</li>

<a href='/about'>About</a>

</li>

</li>

</ul>

</div>

</body>

</html>

#### Context (Python)

title = 'My Page Title'

main_menu_links = (

('/', 'home'),

('/about', 'about')

('/faq', 'faq')

)

The first idea here that I believe is unique is that I'd like to be able to switch between nesting HTML via indentation level (a'la HAML and JADE) and Zen Coding's syntax. The following snippets:

a>b>c>d
    "foo"

and

a>b
    c>d
        "foo"

would produce the same output:

<a>
    <b>
        <c>
            <d>"foo"</d>
        </c>
    </b>
</a>

The second is that I'd like to be able to leverage Zen Coding's syntax in conjunction with Python's iterators. While Zen allowed you to create multiple elements by specifying a multiplier (e.g., ul>li*5 would get you 5 li elements under a ul), generators don't know their own length.

div.navbar>ul>li.navbar-link*?>iterlinks(main_menu_links)

The iterlinks() method in the above would accept a generator or 2-tuples and iterate over them until they it was exhausted. The ? character signifies that the element in the chain is to be iterated without specifying the number of iterations as Zen Coding would require.

public lyndsysimon / templating_language_concept Last active 2013-08-09

public

lyndsysimon / templating_language_concept

Last active 2013-08-09