Nm

Node-Map: a data templating DSL. Named for its two main markup methods: "node" and "map". Designed to template data objects for JSON/BSON/whatever/etc serialization.

Usage

Template:

# in /path/to/views/slideshow.json.nm

node "slideshow" do
  node "start_slide", start_slide
  node "slides" do
    map slides do |slide|
      node "id",    slide.id
      node "title", slide.title
      node "image", slide.image_url
      node "thumb", slide.thumb_url
      node "url",   slide.url
    end
  end
end

Render:

require "nm"
source = Nm::Source.new("/path/to/views")
source.render(
  "slideshow.json",
  locals: {
    start_slide: 1,
    slides: [ ... ] #=> list of slide objects 1, 2 and 3
  }
)

Output:

{ "slideshow" => {
    "start_slide" => 1,
    "slides" => [
      { "id"    => "slide-1",
        "title" => "Slide 1",
        "thumb" => "//path/to/slide-1-thumb.jpg",
        "image" => "//path/to/slide-1-image.jpg",
        "url"   => "//path/to/slide-1-url",
      },
      { "id"    => "slide-2",
        "title" => "Slide 2",
        "thumb" => "//path/to/slide-2-thumb.jpg",
        "image" => "//path/to/slide-2-image.jpg",
        "url"   => "//path/to/slide-2-url",
      },
      { "id"    => "slide-3",
        "title" => "Slide 3",
        "thumb" => "//path/to/slide-3-thumb.jpg",
        "image" => "//path/to/slide-3-image.jpg",
        "url"   => "//path/to/slide-3-url",
      }
    ]
  }
}

Notes

Cache Templates

By default the source doesn't cache template files. You can configure it to cache templates using the :cache option:

source = Nm::Source.new("/path/to/views", cache: true)

Default locals

You can specify a set of default locals to use on all renders for a source using the :locals option:

source =
  Nm::Source.new("/path/to/views", locals: { "something" => "value" })

Render Format

Rendering templates returns a data object (::Hash or ::Array). To serialize, bring in your favorite JSON/BSON/whatever serializer and pass the rendered object to it.

Markup Methods

There are two main markup methods:

node: create a named attribute on a hash object
map: create a list object mapped from a given list

Default render value

Nm templates render an empty object (ie ::Hash.new) if no source is given or no markup methods are called in the template source. The idea is that the templates should always return something and avoid nil values as much as possible.

This is also more consistent with rendering mapped lists vs reduced objects. Say your are mapping a list of objects in your template (using the map markup method):

map incoming_list do |item|
  node "name",  item.name
  node "value", item.value
end

If there are no items in the incoming list, the template render produces an empty list. Now say you are reducing an incoming list to a single object:

incoming_list.each do |item|
  node item.name, item.value
end

If there are no items in the incoming list, no markup methods are called, but the template render still produces an empty object b/c that is the default value.

Partials

Note: using partials negatively impacts template rendering performance.

(from example above)

# in /path/to/views/slideshow.json.nm

node "slideshow" do
  node "start_slide", start_slide
  node "slides" do
    map slides do |slide|
      partial "_slide.json", slide: slide
    end
  end
end

# in /path/to/views/_slide.json.nm

node "id",    slide.id
node "title", slide.title
node "image", slide.image_url
node "thumb", slide.thumb_url
node "url",   slide.url

This will render the same output as above.

Markup Aliases

If you find you need to use a local named node or map, the markup methods are aliased as n, _node, m, and _map respectively. Any combination of aliases is valid:

node "slideshow" do
  n "start_slide", start_slide
  _node "slides" do
    _map slides do |slide|
      _node "id",    slide.id
      node  "title", slide.title
      _node "image", slide.image_url
      node  "thumb", slide.thumb_url
      _node "url",   slide.url
    end
    m other_slides do |slide|
      node  "id",    slide.id
      _node "title", slide.title
      node  "image", slide.image_url
      _node "thumb", slide.thumb_url
      node  "url",   slide.url
    end
  end
end

Installation

Add this line to your application"s Gemfile:

gem "nm"

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install nm

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am "Added some feature")
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create new Pull Request

nm

Development

Runtime

Nm