Hi,

We've rewritten the template module, and internal tests now show it to be around 2.5 times faster in parsing templates. The good news now is the new features we support:

1. else tags:
<%if foo%>
..
<%else%>
..
<%endif%>

2. elsif tags:
<%if foo%>
..
<%elsif bar%>
..
<%else%>
..
<%endif%>

3. include's that include any file (sorry Robert). =)

<%include /www/styles.css%>

4. print as you parse:

GT::Template->parse ('filename', { foo => bar }, { print => 1 });

will now parse the template and print it out as it goes.

5. Loop support! This is the big one.

<%loop link_results%>
<p> <%include link.html%>
<%endloop%>

would go through your link results, and print <P> followed by the link.html template. Also, inside your loop you have the following tags automatically available:

<%row_num%> - a counter for what row is being looped, starts at 1.
<%first%> - boolean that is true if this is the first row, false otherwise.
<%last%> - boolean that is true if this is the last row, false otherwise.
<%inner%> - boolean that is true if this is not first and not last.
<%even%> - boolean is true if row_num is even.
<%odd%> - boolean is true if row_num is odd.

You can use even and odd tags to produce alternating colors like:

<%loop results%>
<tr><td bgcolor="<%if even%>#FFFFFF<%else%>#000000<%endif%>">..</td></tr>
<%endloop%>

From a programming side of things, it's very easy to specify loops. You just pass in an array of hashes, or a code ref. So:

my $sth = $db->select ( { Status => "Administrator" });
GT::Template->parse ('template', { admin_loop => sub { $sth->fetchrow_hashref });

And then in your template you would do:

Your administrators are:
<%loop admin_loop%>
User: <%Username%>
Pass: <%Password%>
<%endloop%>

Let me know what you think on syntax, etc.

Cheers,

Alex

--
Gossamer Threads Inc.