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Overview

Simple system for writing HTML/XML as Go code. Better-performing replacement for html/template and text/template. Vaguely inspired by JS library https://github.com/mitranim/prax.

Advantages over string-based templating:

Other features / benefits:

TOC

Usage

API docs: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/mitranim/gax.

package main

import (
  "fmt"

  gax "github.com/mitranim/gax"
)

var (
  E  = gax.E
  AP = gax.AP
)

func main() {
  fmt.Println(Page(mockDat))
  // <!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><link rel="icon" href="data:;base64,="><title>Posts</title></head><body><h1 class="title">Posts</h1><h2>Post0</h2><h2>Post1</h2></body></html>
}

func Page(dat Dat) gax.Bui {
  return gax.F(
    gax.Str(gax.Doctype),
    E(`html`, AP(`lang`, `en`),
      E(`head`, nil,
        E(`meta`, AP(`charset`, `utf-8`)),
        E(`link`, AP(`rel`, `icon`, `href`, `data:;base64,=`)),

        // Use normal Go conditionals.
        func(bui *gax.Bui) {
          if dat.Title != `` {
            bui.E(`title`, nil, dat.Title)
          } else {
            bui.E(`title`, nil, `test markup`)
          }
        },
      ),

      E(`body`, nil,
        E(`h1`, AP(`class`, `title`), `Posts`),

        // Use normal Go loops.
        func(bui *gax.Bui) {
          for _, post := range dat.Posts {
            bui.E(`h2`, nil, post)
          }
        },
      ),
    ),
  )
}

var mockDat = Dat{
  Title: `Posts`,
  Posts: []string{`Post0`, `Post1`},
}

type Dat struct {
  Title string
  Posts []string
}

Performance

Gax easily beats text/template and html/template. The more complex a template is, the better it gets.

The static benchmark is "unfair" because the Gax version renders just once into a global variable. This is recommended for all completely static markup. Prerendering is also possible with text/template and html/template, but syntactically inconvenient and usually avoided. With Gax it's syntactically convenient and easily done, and the benchmark reflects that.

The dynamic benchmark is intentionally naive, avoiding some Gax optimizations such as static prerender, to mimic simple user code.

go test -bench . -benchmem

cpu: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-8950HK CPU @ 2.90GHz
Benchmark_template_static-12   17002192    67.31 ns/op     48 B/op     1 allocs/op
Benchmark_gax_static-12        640101200   1.845 ns/op      0 B/op     0 allocs/op
Benchmark_template_dynamic-12      9205   130812 ns/op  51811 B/op  1370 allocs/op
Benchmark_gax_dynamic-12          70465    17090 ns/op  10376 B/op   169 allocs/op

Changelog

v0.3.1

Added various attribute-manipulating methods to Attr, Attrs, Elem.

v0.3.0

v0.2.1

Child rendering now supports walking []Ren and []T where T is Ren.

v0.2.0

API revision. Now supports both the append-only style via Bui.E and the expression style via free E. Mix and match for simpler code.

v0.1.4

Bui.Child also supports func(E).

v0.1.3

Added Bui.With and Ebui.

v0.1.2

Minor syntactic bugfix.

v0.1.1

Converted methods .WriteTo(*[]byte) methods to .Append([]byte) []byte for better compliance with established interfaces.

v0.1.0

Init.

License

https://unlicense.org

Misc

I'm receptive to suggestions. If this library almost satisfies you but needs changes, open an issue or chat me up. Contacts: https://mitranim.com/#contacts