Next generation template engine based on the Document Object Model
The Fabrication engine or "Fabic" for short.
The Fabrication Engine represents and interacts with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents using DOM and XPath its "Elements" are addressed and manipulated within the syntax of public interface, direct XPath queries can be executed on the Document Object Model or simply use one of the many built in query methods.
The FabricationEngine is not like most of the other templating engine's on the market, maily because the engine has no concept of place holders, it is only concerned with elements and attributes, structures, expressions and instructions for content that requires processing.
Structures are the templates and expressions are paths to the elements contained within the Document Object Model. The FabricationEngine extends the PHP builtin DOMDocument in many ways and enables the native usage of the XPath object. This allows for an insanely flexible and extensible templating engine.
You can create a DOM structure by loading a html, xhtml, xml string or simply by loading a file, or you can build your own document structure by using the native DOMDoument API. Also there is a specifcation method with the ability to recursivly create structures. There are also some advanced dateset templating features.
Templating without place holders. Document specification pattern methods. Dataset Templating.
Simple example of basic input/output.
<?php
require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/lib/FabricationEngine.php');
$engine = new Fabrication\Library\FabricationEngine();
$engine->input('hello', 'world');
echo $engine->output('hello');
#
# world
#
?>
ID keys are automatically mapped to elements with matching id identifiers.
<?php
require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/lib/FabricationEngine.php');
$template = '<html><head></head><body><div id="hello"></div></body></html>';
$engine = new Fabrication\Library\FabricationEngine();
$engine->input('#hello', 'world');
$engine->run($template);
echo $engine->output('#hello');
#
# world
#
echo $engine->saveHTML();
#
# <html><head></head><body><div id="hello">world</div></body></html>
#
echo $engine->saveFabric();
#
# <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
# "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">'.
# <html><head></head><body><div id="hello">world</div></body></html>
#
?>
Class keys are automatically mapped to elements with matching class identifiers.
<?php
require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/lib/FabricationEngine.php');
$template = '<html><head></head><body><div class="hello"></div></body></html>';
$engine = new Fabrication\Library\FabricationEngine();
$engine->input('.hello', 'world');
$engine->run($template);
echo $engine->output('.hello');
#
# world
#
echo $engine->saveHTML();
#
# <html><head></head><body><div class="hello">world</div></body></html>
#
echo $engine->saveFabric();
#
# <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
# "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">'.
# <html><head></head><body><div class="hello">world</div></body></html>
#
?>
The Output method retrives key, value pairs from the stack. With the Option to apply patterns to the stack or parts of the stack. You have seen the simplest example of Output in the first example, so we can move on to something more advanced, like turning the plain text Input data into actual php code on the fly cool huh!
<?php
require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/lib/FabricationEngine.php');
$engine = new FabricationEngine();
$engine->input('hello', 'world');
echo $engine->output('hello', 'php');
#
# <?php
# $hello="world";
# ?>
#
?>
Doctypes are selected from an supported list.
<?php
require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/lib/FabricationEngine.php');
$template = '<html><head></head><body></body></html>';
$engine = new FabricationEngine();
$engine->run($template);
$engine->setOption('doctype', 'html.5');
echo $engine->saveFabric();
# <!DOCTYPE HTML>
# <html><head></head><body></body></html>
#
?>
- David Stevens (davro)
Fabrication Engine is released under the LGPL license.