Templatest

Push-style (with pull methods for e.g. csrf & i18n) lazy topo-ordered incremental building, liberated from von-neumann-style applicative transition template engine for WackoWiki.

Templatest is a lightweight, compiled template engine that separates presentation from logic. Templates are compiled once into an internal AST of patterns, variables, subpatterns and filters, then rendered by walking the AST and applying transformations on demand.

Features

Compiled templates — parsed once, cached to disk, reused across requests
Pattern blocks — define and recall named sections ([= name =] ... [=])
One-off pattern definitions — [= abc def = ... =] for inline sub-templates
Variables — [' var '] with optional filter pipes (| upper | default "anon")
Subpatterns — [ ' name ' ] to embed pattern instances
Pull actions — [ '' name: arg1 '' ] to call user-supplied functions at render time
Filter pipeline — built-in filters for HTML/JS/CSS/URL escaping, string manipulation, dates, numbers, JSON encoding, and more
Auto-indent — block tags automatically align with their surrounding context
Pre-block support — special handling for <pre> and <textarea> content
Escaper — context-aware escaping (HTML, HTML attribute, JS, CSS, URL) based on Zend Framework
Pull-style extensibility — register runtime callbacks (CSRF tokens, i18n, etc.) that the template can invoke
PHP 8.1+ strict typing — fully typed, namespaced, framework-independent
No dependencies — zero Composer runtime dependencies; PHPUnit only for dev

Requirements

PHP 8.1 or later
iconv or mbstring extension (for non-UTF-8 encoding support in TemplatestEscaper)

Installation

composer require wackowiki/templatest

Or, if vendoring manually:

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

Quick start

Template file `hello.tpl`

[= hello =]
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head><title>[ ' title ' ]</title></head>
<body>
<h1>Hello, [ ' name ' ]!</h1>
[ ' items ' ]
</body>
</html>

[= items =]
<ul>
[ ' item ' ]
</ul>
[=]

[= item =]
<li>[ ' text ' ]</li>
[=]

(Use [==== name ====] for visual emphasis — Templatest accepts any number of = signs.)

Rendering

use Templatest\Templatest;

$tpl = Templatest::read('hello.tpl', '/path/to/cache');

$tpl->title         = 'My Page';
$tpl->name          = 'World';
$tpl->items_item_text = 'first';   // underscore-split path: items → item → text
$tpl->items_item_text = 'second';  // second iteration of same pattern

echo $tpl;

Output

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head><title>My Page</title></head>
<body>
<h1>Hello, World!</h1>
<ul>
<li>first</li>
<li>second</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Template syntax

Quote convention

Templatest tags are wrapped in ' (apostrophe) characters. You can use one or more quotes on each side — the parser treats them as visual delimiters only. The minimum is one:

[' var ']              ← one quote (recommended)
['' var '']            ← two quotes (works, no functional difference)
[''' var ''']          ← three quotes (works, but visually noisy)

For nesting clarity, it's common to use more quotes for outer context and fewer for inner context, though this is purely cosmetic:

[ '' pull_function: [' inner_var '] '' ]   ← pull with inner variable

Equal signs in pattern markers

Pattern blocks use [= name =] or [==== name ====] — any number of = signs works:

[= main =]
[==== main ====]
[================ main =================]

All three are equivalent. Use whichever reads best.

Pattern definition

[= pattern_name =]
... template body ...
[=]

The first pattern defined in a file is the main pattern and is the one rendered by default.

Inline (one-off) pattern

[= anon = ...inline body... =]

Useful for small reusable chunks. The name may be a single punctuation character (anonymous) or an identifier.

Variables

[' var_name ']
[' var_name | filter1 | filter2 ']

Variables are assigned from PHP via $tpl->var_name = 'value' or via underscore-split paths.

Subpatterns

[ ' sub_pattern ' ]
[ ' my_name sub_pattern ' ]

Embeds a pattern instance. Each invocation instantiates a fresh copy unless static inlining applies.

Pull actions

[ '' function_name '' ]
[ '' function_name: arg1 arg2 '' ]

Invokes a user-registered PHP callback. The callback receives:

function my_pull(bool $is_block, string $loc, ...$args): string

Filter pipes

[' msg | upper | trim ']
[' msg | default "anonymous" | escape ']

Filters are evaluated left-to-right. The result of each filter is the input to the next.

Setup directives

.escape html                    # default escape mode for this file
.escape html pattern_name       # escape mode for a specific pattern
.patch patname varname value    # pre-populate a variable in a pattern
.include other_template.tpl     # include another template file

Built-in filters

Filter	Alias	Description
`escape`	`e`	HTML-escape value (modes: `html`, `js`, `css`, `url`, `html_attr`, `raw`)
`default`		Use fallback when value is null/false
`format`		`sprintf()` the value
`stringify`		Convert any value to a readable string
`date`		Format a Unix timestamp
`join`		Implode an array with a glue
`lower`		`mb_strtolower`
`upper`		`mb_strtoupper`
`number`		`number_format` with custom decimal/thousands separators
`void`		Drop the value (returns null)
`index`		Drill into nested arrays via dot-notation path (or `var.path` sugar)
`replace`		Sequential `str_replace` pairs
`json_encode`		Encode value as JSON, optional flags
`json_decode`		Decode JSON string
`sp2nbsp`		Convert runs of spaces to non-breaking spaces
`spaceless`		Strip whitespace between HTML tags (preserves `<pre>`, `<textarea>`)
`regex`		`preg_replace`; strict mode returns null on no match
`trim`		`trim` with custom character mask
`url_encode`		URL-encode a scalar or encode an array as query string
`striptags`		Strip HTML tags with optional allow-list
`nl2br`		Convert double newlines to `<p>` blocks
`truncate`		Truncate to a length with ellipsis
`split`		Explode or `str_split` depending on delimiter
`list`		Pick one of N arguments by index
`enclose`		Wrap with prefix and postfix strings
`check`		Render a checkbox `<input>` value/checked pair
`checkbox`		Render `checked` attribute if truthy
`select`		Render `selected` attribute if matches
`pre`		Mark next output as preformatted (no auto-indent)

API reference

`Templatest::read(string $filename, ?string $cache_dir = null): TemplatestUser`

Compiles (or loads from cache) the template and returns a renderable instance.

$filename — path to the template file
$cache_dir — optional directory for cached compiled templates

$tpl = Templatest::read('page.tpl', __DIR__ . '/cache');

`TemplatestUser`

Magic `__set`

$tpl->name = 'Alice';              // set top-level variable
$tpl->user_name = 'Alice';         // underscore-split: 'user' → 'name'

The single-segment form ($tpl->name = ...) sets a top-level variable. The underscore form walks the pattern tree, so $tpl->items_item_text is equivalent to $tpl->set('items', 'item', 'text', value).

Magic `__get`

$count = (int) $tpl->name;         // number of times 'name' was set

Returns the set-count for the chroot-prefixed variable name. Returns int, not an object — chained property access ($tpl->items->item->text) does NOT work; use the underscore-split form for both reading and writing.

Chroot context

$tpl->enter('user_');              // push context — variable names get 'user_' prefix
$tpl->name = 'Alice';              // → 'user_name'
$tpl->age  = 30;                   // → 'user_age'
$tpl->leave();                     // pop context

Pull functions

$tpl->pull('csrf', function (bool $is_block, string $loc) {
    return '<input type="hidden" name="_token" value="' . bin2hex(random_bytes(16)) . '">';
});

Clone by pattern name

$header = $tpl->header;           // clones the template rooted at pattern 'header'
$header->title = 'Welcome';
echo $header;                     // renders only the header pattern

Direct invocation

$tpl('name', 'Alice', 'age', 30);  // equivalent to $tpl->set('name', 'Alice', 'age', 30)

`set()`

$tpl->set('name', 'Alice');                        // underscore-split path
$tpl->set(['name' => 'Alice', 'age' => 30]);       // array form
$tpl->set('user', 'name', 'Alice');                // explicit nested path

`TemplatestEscaper`

Context-aware escaping utilities, exposed via the escape filter:

$escaper = new TemplatestEscaper();
echo $escaper->escape_html('<b>x</b>');    // &lt;b&gt;x&lt;/b&gt;
echo $escaper->escape_js("'");             // \x27
echo $escaper->escape_url('hello world');  // hello%20world

Caching

Compiled templates are cached to disk if a $cache_dir is provided. The cache is invalidated when:

the source file's mtime changes
the cache file is missing or unreadable
the cache file's CODE_VERSION doesn't match the running version

To disable caching for a single file, set its write bit off (chmod 644); Templatest will re-read from source each time.

To clear the entire cache:

rm -rf /path/to/cache/*

Configuration

Setup directives (in `.tpl` files)

.escape html                  # default escape mode (default: raw)
.escape html pattern_name     # escape mode for a specific pattern
.patch main title "Welcome"   # pre-set variable 'title' to "Welcome" in pattern 'main'
.include header.tpl           # include another template file

Default escape modes

TemplatestSetter::ESCAPER constant controls the default when a pattern has no explicit .escape directive. Default is 'raw' (no escaping).

Testing

composer install
vendor/bin/phpunit

Run with testdox formatting:

vendor/bin/phpunit --testdox

Run a single test:

vendor/bin/phpunit --filter test_random_token

Generate coverage (requires pcov or xdebug):

composer require --dev pcov/clobber
vendor/bin/phpunit --coverage-html coverage/

Architecture

src/
├── Templatest.php         # compiler entry point; reads & caches templates
├── TemplatestUser.php     # public API; per-instance renderable
├── TemplatestSetter.php   # assigns values into chunks; runs filter pipes
├── TemplatestFilters.php  # built-in filter registry
├── TemplatestEscaper.php  # context-aware string escaping (Zend-derived)
├── Helper.php             # standalone utilities (path, serialize, stringify, etc.)
└── Exception/
    ├── InvalidArgumentException.php
    └── RuntimeException.php

Compilation pipeline

.tpl source
   │
   ▼
parse_file()         ─── reads file, splits into patterns, processes .include / .escape / .patch
   │
   ▼
inline_definitions() ─── extracts inline [= abc def = ... =] blocks
   │
   ▼
compile()            ─── scans each pattern for [' ... '] tags,
                        builds chunks + var/sub/pull metadata
   │
   ▼
inline_static_subs() ─── inlines subpatterns that have no dynamic content
   │
   ▼
inline_defaults()    ─── applies [' x | default "..." '] defaults
   │
   ▼
cache → TemplatestUser instance

Render pipeline

$tpl = Templatest::read('page.tpl');
$tpl->title = 'Hello';
echo $tpl;    // __toString() → commit(root)
                  ├── iterate pull actions
                  ├── recurse into subpatterns
                  └── implode chunks

Standalone helper utilities (`Helper` class)

Methods used internally that may also be useful on their own:

Helper::join_path(...$parts): string|false
Helper::serialize_data($data, $options = 0): string
Helper::unserialize_data($text): mixed
Helper::http64_encode($data): string
Helper::is_empty($val): bool
Helper::random_token($length = 10, $complexity = 2): string
Helper::str_rand($min, $max): int
Helper::qencode($name, $value): string
Helper::stringify($x, $compact = 0, $full = 1): string|false
Helper::dbg(...$args): void
Helper::callee($class_filter): string

Credits

Original WackoWiki templating engine by the WackoWiki team
HTML escaper adapted from the BSD-licensed Zend Framework
Standalone port and namespace cleanup by the Templatest maintainers

License

BSD-3-Clause — see LICENSE file.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
src		src
tests		tests
.editorconfig		.editorconfig
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
composer.json		composer.json
phpunit.xml		phpunit.xml

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Templatest

Features

Requirements

Installation

Quick start

Template file hello.tpl

Rendering

Output

Template syntax

Quote convention

Equal signs in pattern markers

Pattern definition

Inline (one-off) pattern

Variables

Subpatterns

Pull actions

Filter pipes

Setup directives

Built-in filters

API reference

Templatest::read(string $filename, ?string $cache_dir = null): TemplatestUser

TemplatestUser

Magic __set

Magic __get

Chroot context

Pull functions

Clone by pattern name

Direct invocation

set()

TemplatestEscaper

Caching

Configuration

Setup directives (in .tpl files)

Default escape modes

Testing

Architecture

Compilation pipeline

Render pipeline

Standalone helper utilities (Helper class)

Credits

License

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