view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

README.md  view on Meta::CPAN

Result:

    (1)(2)(3)(4)

## Plugins

Layout plugins provide a way to get access to special functionality that are 
more complicated than what [filters](#filters) provide. This section defines some 
of the plugins that are distributed with Dapper. For a comprehensive list, see 
[Template::Toolkit plugin](http://template-toolkit.org/docs/manual/Plugins.html).

### Datafile

This plugin provides a simple facility to construct a list of hash references, 
each of which represents a data record of known structure from a specified data 
file. A filename must be specified. An optional delim parameter may also be 
provided to specify an alternate delimiter character.

The format of the file is intentionally simple. The first line defines the field 
names, delimited by colons with optional surrounding whitespace. Subsequent lines 
then defines records containing data items, also delimited by colons. For example:

    id : name
    mdb: Mark Benson
    lkb: Loomis Buschwa

Each line is read, split into composite fields, and then used to initialize a 
hash array containing the field names as relevant keys. The plugin returns a 
blessed list reference containing the hash references in the order as defined in 
the file. Example:

    [% use userlist = datafile('users.txt', delim = ':') %]
    [% for user in userlist %]
        [% user.id %] -> [% user.name %]
    [% end %]

Result:

    mdb -> Mark Benson
    lkb -> Loomis Buschwa

The first line of the file must contain the field definitions. After the first 
line, blank lines will be ignored, along with comment line which start with a '#'.

### Date

The Date plugin provides an easy way to generate formatted time and date strings 
by delegating to the POSIX strftime() routine.

The plugin can be loaded via the `use` directive.

    [% use date %]

This creates a plugin object with the default name of `date`. An alternate name 
can be specified like this:

    [% use myname = date %]

The plugin provides the format() method which accepts a time value, a format 
string and a locale name. All of these parameters are optional with the current 
system time, default format ('%H:%M:%S %d-%b-%Y') and current locale being used 
respectively, if undefined. Default values for the time, format and/or locale may 
be specified as named parameters in the use directive.

    [% use date(format = '%a %d-%b-%Y', locale = 'fr_FR') %]

When called without any parameters, the format() method returns a string 
representing the current system time, formatted by strftime() according to the 
default format and for the default locale (which may not be the current one, if 
locale is set in the use directive).

    [% date.format %]

The plugin allows a time/date to be specified as seconds since the epoch, as is 
returned by time().

    File last modified: [% date.format(filemod_time) %]

The time/date can also be specified as a string of the form `h:m:s d/m/y` or
`y/m/d h:m:s`. Any of the characters `:` `/` `-` or space may be used to delimit 
fields.

    [% use day = date(format => '%A', locale => 'en_GB') %]
    [% day.format('4:20:00 9-13-2000') %]

Output:

    Tuesday

A format string can also be passed to the format() method, and a locale 
specification may follow that.

    [% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y') %]
    [% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y', 'en_GB') %]

A fourth parameter allows you to force output in GMT, in the case of seconds-
since-the-epoch input:

    [% date.format(filemod, '%d-%b-%Y', 'en_GB', 1) %]

Note that in this case, if the local time is not GMT, then also specifying '%Z' 
(time zone) in the format parameter will lead to an extremely misleading result.

Any or all of these parameters may be named. Positional parameters should always 
be in the order ($time, $format, $locale).

    [% date.format(format => '%H:%M:%S') %]
    [% date.format(time => filemod, format => '%H:%M:%S') %]
    [% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S') %]
    [% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S', locale => 'fr_FR') %]
    [% date.format(mytime, format => '%H:%M:%S', gmt => 1) %]
    ...etc...

The now() method returns the current system time in seconds since the epoch.

    [% date.format(date.now, '%A') %]

The calc() method can be used to create an interface to the Date::Calc module (if 
installed on your system).

    [% calc = date.calc %]
    [% calc.Monday_of_Week(22, 2001).join('/') %]

The manip() method can be used to create an interface to the Date::Manip module 
(if installed on your system).

    [% manip = date.manip %]
    [% manip.UnixDate("Noon Yesterday","%Y %b %d %H:%M") %]

## Chomping

When using directives in templates, it can help to add whitespace around
the directives to make them more readable. However, adding this whitespace
can make the resulting output unreadable. To help with this, special uses of
the `+`, `-`, `=`, and `~` characters can be used to pre- and post-chomp
the whitespace as follows:

#### [%+ Chomp None +%]

Don't do any chomping.

```
Quick.

[%+ "Brown." +%]

Fox.
```

Result:

```
Quick.

Brown.

Fox.
```

#### [%- Chomp One -%]

Delete any whitespace up to the adjacent newline.

```
Quick.

[%- "Brown." -%]

Fox.
```