SilverB

Introduction

SilverB is a template engine, but made for code and text generation and to be used with PWC Code Generator. In the past, I tested some template engines with PWC, like Handlebars, Dot and others. But these template engines are made for another purpose (HTML templates) and, because of it, I decided to make my own template engine.

SilverB can be used for any dynamic text generation and accepts all Javascript syntaxes inside your special tags.

Installation

To use SilverB in your own project, install it using npm:

npm install silverb --save

And import it on your script:

const SilverB = require('silverb');

Finally, build something amazing! :D

Example

Let's consider we have this data:

var data = {
    name: 'Tiago Silva Pereira Rodrigues',
    projects: [
        'PWC', 'SilverB', 'Rapid Mockup', 'Stop It'
    ]
}

And we have this text template:

var template = `
Hi, I'm <$ this.name $>.

I created these projects:

<# It is a comment #>
<% for (let project of this.projects) { %>
    - <$ project $>
<% } %>
`;

As you can see, we can attach the data object to the template scope and can access it using this. Any javascript command is accepted inside <% %> tags.

Then we can compile the template:

const SilverB = require('silverb');

// The data object can be passed to the template on the compile method
var result = new SilverB(template).compile(data); 

The result will be:

Hi, I'm Tiago Silva Pereira Rodrigues.

I created these projects:

    - PWC
    - SilverB
    - Rapid Mockup
    - Stop It

See this example running here.

Tags

At this moment, SilverB has four different tags that can be used. All the text outside these tags will be generated without modifications, keeping the indentation and break lines.

The tags are:

• <# #> - Used for line comments
• <$ $> - Used to show variables or expression values. Commands inside these tags will be executed and transformed into text
• <up up> - It is like <$ $>, but will put the result on the previous line (only if the tags are at the start of a new line)
• <% %> - Used for javascript logic blocks like if, for, etc. Commands inside these tags will not be transformed to text. Accepts all javascript syntax.

Examples:

<# It is a comment and will not be transformed to text #>

<# Showing a value - will convert to something like "Tiago Rodrigues" #>
<$ this.name $>

---------------

<# Showing an expression return - will convert to something like "User", or "Role", etc #>
<$ this.model.getName() $>

---------------

<# The second sentence will be generated on the previous line - will result in something like "Tiago Rodrigues - Tiago Rodrigues" #>
<$ this.name $> -
<up this.name up>

---------------

var data = true;

...

<# If this.data is equal true #>
<% if(this.data == true) { %>
    Hi, I'm here!!
<% } %>

Helpers

Helpers are methods on the template scope that you can call conditionally to make specific text operations. The currently available helpers are:

removeLastBreakLine - It will remove the last break line on the text. Eg:

var data = true;

...

<# Template #>

Something here...

<% if(this.data == true) { %>
    <% this.removeLastBreakLine(); %> <# Will remove the break line after "Something here..." #>
<% } %>

Syntax Highlighter

We have a simple SilverB Syntax Highlighter for VSCode here. If you want, you can create a syntax highlighter for your preferred editor and add on this Readme.

The syntax highlighter will work on files with .silverb extension.

License

MIT