java8-liquid

A Java implementation of the Liquid templating engine backed up by an ANTLR grammar.

Installation

Gradle

Dependency:

dependencies {
  compile 'pl.matsuo.liquid:java8-liquid:0.1.0'
}

Maven

Dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>pl.matsuo.liquid</groupId>
  <artifactId>java8-liquid</artifactId>
  <version>0.1.0</version>
</dependency>

Or clone this repository and run: mvn install which will create a JAR of java8-liquid in your local Maven repository, as well as in the project's target/ folder.

This library can be used in two different ways:

1. to construct an AST (abstract syntax tree) of some Liquid input
2. to render Liquid input source (either files, or input strings)

1. Creating an AST

To create an AST from input source, do the following:

String input =
        "<ul id=\"products\">                                       \n" +
        "  {% for product in products %}                            \n" +
        "    <li>                                                   \n" +
        "      <h2>{{ product.name }}</h2>                          \n" +
        "      Only {{ product.price | price }}                     \n" +
        "                                                           \n" +
        "      {{ product.description | prettyprint | paragraph }}  \n" +
        "    </li>                                                  \n" +
        "  {% endfor %}                                             \n" +
        "</ul>                                                      \n";
Template template = Template.parse(input);

CommonTree root = template.getAST();

As you can see, the getAST() method returns an instance of a CommonTree denoting the root node of the input source. To see how the AST is built, you can use Template#toStringAST() to print an ASCII representation of the tree:

System.out.println(template.toStringAST());
/*
    '- BLOCK
       |- PLAIN='<ul id="products">'
       |- FOR_ARRAY
       |  |- Id='product'
       |  |- LOOKUP
       |  |  '- Id='products'
       |  |- BLOCK
       |  |  |- PLAIN='<li> <h2>'
       |  |  |- OUTPUT
       |  |  |  |- LOOKUP
       |  |  |  |  |- Id='product'
       |  |  |  |  '- Id='name'
       |  |  |  '- FILTERS
       |  |  |- PLAIN='</h2> Only'
       |  |  |- OUTPUT
       |  |  |  |- LOOKUP
       |  |  |  |  |- Id='product'
       |  |  |  |  '- Id='price'
       |  |  |  '- FILTERS
       |  |  |     '- FILTER
       |  |  |        |- Id='price'
       |  |  |        '- PARAMS
       |  |  |- PLAIN=''
       |  |  |- OUTPUT
       |  |  |  |- LOOKUP
       |  |  |  |  |- Id='product'
       |  |  |  |  '- Id='description'
       |  |  |  '- FILTERS
       |  |  |     |- FILTER
       |  |  |     |  |- Id='prettyprint'
       |  |  |     |  '- PARAMS
       |  |  |     '- FILTER
       |  |  |        |- Id='paragraph'
       |  |  |        '- PARAMS
       |  |  '- PLAIN='</li>'
       |  '- ATTRIBUTES
       '- PLAIN='</ul>'
*/

Checkout the ANTLR grammar to see what the AST looks like for each of the parser rules.

2. Render Liquid

If you're not familiar with Liquid, have a look at their website: http://liquidmarkup.org.

In Ruby, you'd render a template like this:

@template = Liquid::Template.parse("hi {{name}}")  # Parses and compiles the template
@template.render( 'name' => 'tobi' )               # Renders the output => "hi tobi"

With java8-liquid, the equivalent looks like this:

Template template = Template.parse("hi {{name}}");
String rendered = template.render("name", "tobi");
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    hi tobi
*/

The context provided as a parameter to render(...) can be:

• a varargs where the 0^th, 2^nd, 4^th, ... indexes must be String literals denoting the keys. The values can be any Object.
• a Map<String, Object>
• or a JSON string

The following examples are equivalent to the previous java8-liquid example:

Map example

Template template = Template.parse("hi {{name}}");
Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();
map.put("name", "tobi");
String rendered = template.render(map);
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    hi tobi
*/

JSON example

Template template = Template.parse("hi {{name}}");
String rendered = template.render("{\"name\" : \"tobi\"}");
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    hi tobi
*/

2.1 Custom filters

Let's say you want to create a custom filters, called b, that changes a string like *text* to <strong>text</strong>.

You can do that as follows:

// first register your custom filter
Filter.registerFilter(new Filter("b"){
    @Override
    public Object apply(Object value, Object... params) {
        // create a string from the  value
        String text = super.asString(value);

        // replace and return *...* with <strong>...</strong>
        return text.replaceAll("\\*(\\w(.*?\\w)?)\\*", "<strong>$1</strong>");
    }
});

// use your filter
Template template = Template.parse("{{ wiki | b }}");
String rendered = template.render("{\"wiki\" : \"Some *bold* text *in here*.\"}");
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    Some <strong>bold</strong> text <strong>in here</strong>.
*/

And to use an optional parameter in your filter, do something like this:

// first register your custom filter
Filter.registerFilter(new Filter("repeat"){
    @Override
    public Object apply(Object value, Object... params) {

        // get the text of the value
        String text = super.asString(value);
        
        // check if an optional parameter is provided
        int times = params.length == 0 ? 1 : super.asNumber(params[0]).intValue();

        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();

        while(times-- > 0) {
            builder.append(text);
        }

        return builder.toString();
    }
});

// use your filter
Template template = Template.parse("{{ 'a' | repeat }}\n{{ 'b' | repeat:5 }}");
String rendered = template.render();
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    a
    bbbbb
*/

You can use an array (or list) as well, and can also return a numerical value:

Filter.registerFilter(new Filter("sum"){
    @Override
    public Object apply(Object value, Object... params) {

        Object[] numbers = super.asArray(value);

        double sum = 0;

        for(Object obj : numbers) {
            sum += super.asNumber(obj).doubleValue();
        }

        return sum;
    }
});

Template template = Template.parse("{{ numbers | sum }}");
String rendered = template.render("{\"numbers\" : [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]}");
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    15.0
*/

2.2 Custom tags

Let's say you would like to create a tag that makes it easy to loop for a fixed amount of times, executing a block of Liquid code.

Here's a way to create, and use, such a custom loop tag:

Tag.registerTag(new Tag("loop"){
    @Override
    public Object render(Map<String, Object> context, LNode... nodes) {

        int n = super.asNumber(nodes[0].render(context)).intValue();
        LNode block = nodes[1];

        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();

        while(n-- > 0) {
            builder.append(super.asString(block.render(context)));
        }

        return builder.toString();
    }
});

Template template = Template.parse("{% loop 5 %}looping!\n{% endloop %}");
String rendered = template.render();
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    looping!
    looping!
    looping!
    looping!
    looping!
*/

Note that both Tag.registerTag(Tag) and Filer.registerFilter(Filter) will add tags and filters per JVM instance. If you want templates to use specific filters, create your Template instance as follows:

Template.parse(source)
        .with(filter);

Template.parse(source)
        .with(tag);

// Or combine them:
Template.parse(source)
        .with(filter)
        .with(tag);

For example, using the sum filter for just 1 template, would look like this:

Template template = Template.parse("{{ numbers | sum }}").with(new Filter("sum"){
    @Override
    public Object apply(Object value, Object... params) {

        Object[] numbers = super.asArray(value);
        double sum = 0;

        for(Object obj : numbers) {
            sum += super.asNumber(obj).doubleValue();
        }

        return sum;
    }
});

String rendered = template.render("{\"numbers\" : [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]}");
System.out.println(rendered);
/*
    15.0
*/