stpl

stpl - Super template library for Rust

stpl is a plain-Rust-only template library with some neat properties and features.

Main idea

In stpl there are no magic macros or DSLs, and no clunky text-files with weird syntax. Everything is just normal, easy to understand Rust code.

Let's take a look at a real-life example from the pilot project: an HTML based-skeleton template for a Bootstrap-based UI.

pub fn base<C: Render + 'static>(data: &Data, content: C) -> impl Render {
    (
        doctype("html"),
        html((
            head((
                meta.charset("utf-8"),
                meta.name("viewport").content("width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no"),
                meta.name("description").content(""),
                meta.name("author").content("Dawid Ciężarkiewicz"),
                title(data.title.clone()),
                (
                    link.rel("icon").href("/static/favicon.ico"),
                    link.rel("stylesheet").href("/static/theme/flatly/bootstrap.min.css"),
                    link.rel("stylesheet").href("/static/theme/starter-template.css"),
                )
            )),
            body((
                navbar(data),
                main
                    .id("main")
                    .role("main")
                    .class("container mb-5")(
                    content,
                ),
                (
                script.src("https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.min.js").crossorigin("anonymous"),
                script.src("https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/popper.js/1.12.3/umd/popper.min.js")
                    .integrity("sha384-vFJXuSJphROIrBnz7yo7oB41mKfc8JzQZiCq4NCceLEaO4IHwicKwpJf9c9IpFgh")
                    .crossorigin("anonymous"),
                script.src("https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0-beta.2/js/bootstrap.min.js")
                    .integrity("sha384-alpBpkh1PFOepccYVYDB4do5UnbKysX5WZXm3XxPqe5iKTfUKjNkCk9SaVuEZflJ")
                    .crossorigin("anonymous"),
                script.type_("text/javascript")(
                    raw(include_str!("white-icon.js"))
                ),
                )
            ))
        ))
    )
}

It is just a function. There is no magic, no macros, no text files involved. The whole template was formatted with rustfmt just like a normal Rust code.

The function accepts arguments:

• data: Data containing information how to "fill the blanks", and
• content: Render - sub-template value that will be used as main page content.

The function returns Render value that can be rendered as a string or bytes, or composed with other templates. The value is basically a one big tuple nesting many other Render values. Render is implemented for many standard types, can be implemented for new types or can be generated using functions/closures.

Users are free to use any Rust language primitives to generate their templates and structure relationship between them in any way that suits them.

Pros

• robust: template generation can reuse any existing code and data structures
• convenient: Rust tooling can work with plain-Rust-templates just like any other code; rustfmt takes care of formatting, typos result in normal error messages etc.
• fast: the compiler optimizes the template code to essential logic necessary to write-out the rendered template data to the IO; there is no parsing involved

Cons

• nightly-only: This library relies on some unstable features:
  • #![feature(unboxed_closures)]

  ![feature(fn_traits)]

• immature and incomplete: This library is still work in progress, and will mature with time.

Where to start

You are most probably interested in reading html module documentation

License

stpl is licensed under: MPL-2.0/MIT/Apache-2.0