Perch CMS Template Engine

-HOW WE WROTE A- TEMPLATE ENGINE Drew McLellan Perch CMS grabaperch.com RDG Geek Night 10th September 2013

L I G H T W E I G H T PHP CMS FOR SMALL WEBSITES

WE NEEDED A REALLY GOOD TEMPLATE LANGUAGE

-SO- WHAT WAS ALREADY OUT THERE?

SMARTY (NOT SO SMART)

TWIG (NOT SO MATURE)

JUST PHP -WITH A- DIFFERENT SYNTAX

!<perch:content !!!type=”text” !!!id=”heading” !!!label=”Main heading” !!!required=”true” />

HTML IS LIKE XML RIGHT?

<img src="<perch:content id="photo" type="image" label="Photo" />" />

xkcd.com/208

stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/

! <perch:content type=”text” ! ! id=”heading” label=”Main heading” ! ! required=”true” /> #perch:content[^]*/>#

$Tag = new PerchXMLTag( '<perch:content id="foo" bar="baz" />'); echo $Tag->bar; // baz

#([a-z-])="([^"])"#

#([a-z-]+)=["]([^"\ \](?:\\.[^"\\ ])*)["]#

-WAIT- REGULAR EXPRESSIONS ARE SLOW, RIGHT?

REGEX ARE SLOW UNLESS YOU NEED THEM

! <perch:if exists=”foo”> ! ! ... loadsamarkup ... ! </perch:if> #(perch:if[^]>)(((?! perch:if).))</perch:if>#

-WE NEEDED- A NEW WAY -TO PARSE- TAG PAIRS

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! <perch:if exists=”c”> ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! </perch:if> ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! <perch:if exists=”c”> ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! </perch:if> ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! <perch:if exists=”c”> ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! </perch:if> ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! <perch:if exists=”c”> ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! </perch:if> ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! <perch:if exists=”c”> ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! </perch:if> ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! <perch:if exists=”c”> ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! </perch:if> ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

<perch:if exists=”a”> ! <perch:if exists=”b”> ! ! ! ! ! Hello, world. ! ! ! </perch:if> <perch:else /> ! <perch:if exists=”d”> ! ! Goodbye, cruel world. ! </perch:if> </perch:if>

CLOSING TAGS -ARE - EASY

NO MORE WINDOWS CRASHES

MAYBE - WE WILL - REWRITE IT

THANK YOU Perch is at grabaperch.com On most things, I’ am @drewm