| 1 |
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| 2 | Text::Template v1.46
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| 3 |
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| 4 | This is a library for generating form letters, building HTML pages, or
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| 5 | filling in templates generally. A `template' is a piece of text that
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| 6 | has little Perl programs embedded in it here and there. When you
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| 7 | `fill in' a template, you evaluate the little programs and replace
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| 8 | them with their values.
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| 9 |
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| 10 | Here's an example of a template:
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| 11 |
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| 12 | Dear {$title} {$lastname},
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| 13 |
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| 14 | It has come to our attention that you are delinquent in your
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| 15 | {$monthname[$last_paid_month]} payment. Please remit
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| 16 | ${sprintf("%.2f", $amount)} immediately, or your patellae may
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| 17 | be needlessly endangered.
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| 18 |
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| 19 | Love,
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| 20 |
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| 21 | Mark "{nickname(rand 20)}" Dominus
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| 22 |
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| 23 |
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| 24 | The result of filling in this template is a string, which might look
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| 25 | something like this:
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| 26 |
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| 27 | Dear Mr. Gates,
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| 28 |
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| 29 | It has come to our attention that you are delinquent in your
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| 30 | February payment. Please remit
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| 31 | $392.12 immediately, or your patellae may
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| 32 | be needlessly endangered.
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| 33 |
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| 34 |
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| 35 | Love,
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| 36 |
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| 37 | Mark "Vizopteryx" Dominus
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| 38 |
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| 39 | You can store a template in a file outside your program. People can
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| 40 | modify the template without modifying the program. You can separate
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| 41 | the formatting details from the main code, and put the formatting
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| 42 | parts of the program into the template. That prevents code bloat and
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| 43 | encourages functional separation.
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| 44 |
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| 45 | You can fill in the template in a `Safe' compartment. This means that
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| 46 | if you don't trust the person who wrote the code in the template, you
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| 47 | won't have to worry that they are tampering with your program when you
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| 48 | execute it.
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| 49 |
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| 50 | ----------------------------------------------------------------
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| 51 |
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| 52 | Text::Template was originally released some time in late 1995 or early
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| 53 | 1996. After three years of study and investigation, I rewrote it from
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| 54 | scratch in January 1999. The new version, 1.0, was much faster,
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| 55 | delivered better functionality and was almost 100% backward-compatible
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| 56 | with the previous beta versions.
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| 57 |
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| 58 | I have added a number of useful features and conveniences since the
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| 59 | 1.0 release, while still retaining backward compatibility. With one
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| 60 | merely cosmetic change, the current version of Text::Template passes
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| 61 | the test suite that the old beta versions passed.
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| 62 |
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