thunder

A lightning fast JavaScript template engine.

Description

thunder is one of the fastest JavaScript template engine for Node.js and browsers. Checkout the benchmarks for its performance. The usage is quite simple, evaluation, interpolation, and interpolation with html escaping. All variables and functions must start with it for performance sake. thunder works well with Express, check out the examples folder for the setup.

Syntax

Evaluation

Evaluate JavaScript expression

<? ?>

<? if( it.user ){ ?>
  <p>User exist</p>
<? } ?>

Interpolation

Simple output ( no escape )

<?= ?>

// script = '<script>alert( 'this is harmful' );</script>';
<?= it.script ?>
// prints out <script>alert( 'this is harmful' );</script>

Interpolation with html escaping

Simple output ( escape ) | & < > " --> & < > "

<?- ?>

// script = '<script>alert( 'this is gonna be fine' );</script>';
<?- it.script ?>
// prints out &lt;script&gt;alert( 'this is gonna be fine' );&lt;script/&gt;

Installation

With node.js

via npm:

// in the project root
$ npm install thunder

On browsers

Install thunder in global to use the command line tools. You will need them to compile the HTML templates to JavaScript strings. By default thunder looks for all the .html files in the dir templates in the same dir where the command is called, compile them to JavaScript strings and save them to views dir. You can specify the input and output dir to wherever you want by passing the -i and -o arguments. Also the default compiled strings are requirejs modules. By passing -r=false it will use the file name as the template name and attach it to window object.

// make sure you have `node.js` installed
$ npm intall thunder -g

$ thunder

Usage: thunder [command] [argument(s)]

Commands:
  -v, --version    Display thunder version
  h,  help         Display usage information
  b,  build [args] Precompile templates
  w,  watch [args] Watch for changes

Arguments for `build` & `watch commands`
  -i, --input=/new/input/dir   Default: ./templates
  -o, --output=/new/output/dir Default: ./views
  -r, --requirejs=false        Default: true

Copy thunder.min.js to your public JavaScript dir.

Usage

For advance usages please checkout the API block.

With node.js

 var thunder = require( 'thunder' );
 var input   = '<div>Hello, this is <?= it.name ?> :)</div>',
 var locals  = { name : 'Bibi' };
 var options = {
   cached   : true,
   compress : true
 };

 var output = thunder.render( input, locals, options );

 console.log( output );
 // <div>Hello, this is Bibi :)</div>

Express 2.x

app.configure( function(){
  ...
  app.set( 'view engine', 'html' );
  app.register( '.html', require( 'thunder' ));
  // optional
  app.set( 'view options', {
    compress : true
  });
  ...
});

To use express partial, helper and dynamic helper just call the method but start with it.

// partial
<?= it.partial( 'common/_nav' ) ?>

// helper
<a class="<?= it.selected( 'somewhere', it.nav_selected )?>" href="/somewhere">Somewhere</a>

On browsers

• Normal useage

// Include necessary JS files
<script src="/js/lib/thunder.min.js"></script>
<script src="/js/views/index.js"></script>
<script>
  var input   = index,
  var locals  = { name : 'Bibi' };
  var options = { cached : true };
  var output  = thunder.render( input, locals, options );

  console.log( output );
  // <div>Hello, this is Bibi :)</div>
</script>

• With requirejs

<script src="/js/lib/require.js" data-main="/js/main.js"></script>
<script>
  requirejs.config({
    baseUrl : '/js/lib',
    paths   : { views : '../views' }
  });
</script>
<script>
  define( function ( require, exports, module ){
    var thunder = require( 'thunder' );
    var input   = require( 'views/index' );
    var locals  = { name : 'Bibi' };
    var options = { cached : true };
    var output  = thunder.render( input, locals, options );

    console.log( output );
    // <div>Hello, this is Bibi :)</div>
  });
</script>

API

Arguments

input

type: String
desc: Input string to be compiled

thunder.compiled_text( input, options );

Returns the text ready to be compiled for the compile function.

Arguments

input

type: String
desc: Input string to be compiled

options:

type: Object
props:
  compress:
    type: Boolean
    default: false
    desc: Whether to compress the output HTML

Example code

var input         = '<div>Hello, this is <?= it.name ?> :)</div>';
var compiled_text = thunder.compiled_text( input );

console.log( compiled_text );
// var __t__='<div>Hello, this is ';__t__+= it.name ;__t__+=' :)</div>';return __t__;

thunder.compile( input, options );

Returns the compiled function.

Arguments

input

type: String
desc: Input string to be compiled

options

type: Object
props:
  compress:
    type: Boolean
    default: false
    desc: Whether to compress the output HTML

Example code

var input  = '<div>Hello, this is <?= it.name ?> :)</div>';
var render = thunder.compile( input );

// it actually turns to the following function
// function ( locals ){
//   var __t__='<div>Hello, this is ';__t__+= locals.name ;__t__+=' :)</div>';return __t__;
// };

thunder.cached( input, options );

Returns the cached compiled function.

Arguments

input

type: String
desc: Input string to be compiled

options

type: Object
props:
  compress:
    type: Boolean
    default: false
    desc: Whether to compress the output HTML

Example code

var input  = '<div>Hello, this is <?= it.name ?> :)</div>';
var render = thunder.cached( input );

// it actually turns to the following function and will be cached
// so that next time the text does not need to be compiled again
// function ( locals ){
//   var __t__='<div>Hello, this is ';__t__+= locals.name ;__t__+=' :)</div>';return __t__;
// };

thunder.render( input, locals, options );

Returns the output.

Arguments

input

type: String
desc: Input string to be compiled

locals

type: Object
desc: Variables to be passed to the compiled function

options

type: Object
props:
  compress:
    type: Boolean
    default: false
    desc: Whether to compress the output HTML
  cached:
    type: Boolean
    default: false
    desc: Whether to cache the compiled function

Example code

var input  = '<div>Hello, this is <?= it.name ?> :)</div>',
var locals = { name : 'Bibi' };

var options = {
  cached   : true,
  compress : true
};

var output = thunder.render( input, locals, options );

console.log( output );
// <div>Hello, this is Bibi :)</div>

Examples

Checkout the examples folder for more details.

simple

$ cd /path/to/thunder/examples/simple
$ node run.js

complex

$ cd /path/to/thunder/examples/complex
$ node run.js

express

$ cd /path/to/thunder/examples/express
$ npm install -lf
$ node app.js

Benchmarks

The followings are some well-known template parsers that I took for Benchmarks. You are welcome to fork it and add more. There are 2 main parts, the compiling speed and the rendering speed. The compiled templates are cached in jqtpl, Swig and thunder. Therefore their benchmarks for compiling is much faster. You can change the compile method from cached to compile to see the none-cached speed for thunder.

To run the benchmarks just type the following commands in the terminal

$ git clone git://github.com/dreamerslab/thunder.git
$ cd thunder/benchmarks/
$ npm install -lf
$ node run.js

• doT
• EJS
• haml-js
• Haml.js
• Jade
• jqtpl
• jst
• nTenjin
• Swig
• thunder

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2011 dreamerslab <[email protected]>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.