KATE

KATE stands for Kotlin Adaptive Template Engine , KATE is very adaptive and you'd find it true to its name.

Usage

Create a source stream , You can use TextSourceStream or InputSourceStream if you are on jvm

val context = TemplateContext(TextSourceStream("@var i = 5 @var(i)"))

If you'd like to get output as text , You can do

context.getDestinationAsString(): String

If you'd like to write output to output stream on jvm

val output = file.outputStream()
val stream = OutputDestinationStream(output)
context.stream.generateTo(stream)
output.close()

How KATE works

For the full design please see KATE Design

Modes

KATE has three modes

1 - Default No Raw (Language is parsed and Text is outputted)

2 - Partial Raw (Only language is parsed and explicit output is required)

3 - Raw (Text is outputted as it is)

Variable Reference To Placeholder Invocation

Placeholders are called under the hood that output everything you see , Automatic conversion of variable reference to placeholder invocation takes place in Default No Raw mode only

You can think of placeholders as functions for now even though KATE has functions and they're different

This code @var i = 5 @var(i) does two things

1 - Create a variable named i

2 - Reference a variable named i

In Mode Default No Raw The variable reference @var(i) translates to @placeholder(@var(i.getType()),,@var(i))

The code @var(i.getType()) returns type of a variable , which is int in this case

so the placeholder invocation becomes @placeholder(int,,@var(i))

which means

Call a placeholder by the name of int using variable @var(i) as parameter

int placeholder outputs its parameter value in string format

It does that using the following code

@write(@var(__param__.toString()))

Say if you wanted to write Kate or any text before printing every int to output

@define_placeholder(int,kateint)
    Kate@write(@var(__param__.toString()))
@end_define_placeholder
@var i = 5 @var(i)

you define a placeholder named int with definition name kateint since int already exists , By defining the placeholder you're asking KATE to use it as well

If you'd like to back to previous placeholder

@use_placeholder(int)

After this invocation @var i = 5 @var(i) , This code will no longer print Kate before every int

Now to put everything in your perspective , There are placeholders for all the types KATE supports , Primitives , Lists & Objects

Licensing

All the code generated using KATE is totally yours , templates that you write are yours , You can license them however you like , KATE and templates shipped with KATE are under LICENSE defined in this repository