new(\%params)¶

The "new()" constructor creates and returns a reference to a new "Template::Parser" object.

A reference to a hash may be supplied as a parameter to provide configuration values. See "CONFIGURATION OPTIONS" below for a summary of these options and Template::Manual::Config for full details.

    my $parser = Template::Parser->new({
        START_TAG => quotemeta('<+'),
        END_TAG   => quotemeta('+>'),
    });

parse($text)¶

The "parse()" method parses the text passed in the first parameter and returns a reference to a hash array of data defining the compiled representation of the template text, suitable for passing to the Template::Document new() constructor method. On error, undef is returned.

    $data = $parser->parse($text)
        || die $parser->error();

The $data hash reference returned contains a "BLOCK" item containing the compiled Perl code for the template, a "DEFBLOCKS" item containing a reference to a hash array of sub-template "BLOCK"s defined within in the template, and a "METADATA" item containing a reference to a hash array of metadata values defined in "META" tags.

START_TAG, END_TAG¶

The START_TAG and END_TAG options are used to specify character sequences or regular expressions that mark the start and end of a template directive.

    my $parser = Template::Parser->new({ 
        START_TAG => quotemeta('<+'),
        END_TAG   => quotemeta('+>'),
    });

TAG_STYLE¶

The TAG_STYLE option can be used to set both START_TAG and END_TAG according to pre-defined tag styles.

    my $parser = Template::Parser->new({ 
        TAG_STYLE => 'star',     # [* ... *]
    });

PRE_CHOMP, POST_CHOMP¶

The PRE_CHOMP and POST_CHOMP can be set to remove any whitespace before or after a directive tag, respectively.

    my $parser = Template::Parser-E<gt>new({
        PRE_CHOMP  => 1,
        POST_CHOMP => 1,
    });

INTERPOLATE¶

The INTERPOLATE flag can be set to allow variables to be embedded in plain text blocks.

    my $parser = Template::Parser->new({ 
        INTERPOLATE => 1,
    });

Variables should be prefixed by a "$" to identify them, using curly braces to explicitly scope the variable name where necessary.

    Hello ${name},
    
    The day today is ${day.today}.

ANYCASE¶

The ANYCASE option can be set to allow directive keywords to be specified in any case.

    # with ANYCASE set to 1
    [% INCLUDE foobar %]    # OK
    [% include foobar %]    # OK
    [% include = 10   %]    # ERROR, 'include' is a reserved word

GRAMMAR¶

The GRAMMAR configuration item can be used to specify an alternate grammar for the parser. This allows a modified or entirely new template language to be constructed and used by the Template Toolkit.

    use MyOrg::Template::Grammar;
    
    my $parser = Template::Parser->new({ 
        GRAMMAR = MyOrg::Template::Grammar->new();
    });

By default, an instance of the default Template::Grammar will be created and used automatically if a "GRAMMAR" item isn't specified.

DEBUG¶

The DEBUG option can be used to enable various debugging features of the "Template::Parser" module.

    use Template::Constants qw( :debug );
    
    my $template = Template->new({
        DEBUG => DEBUG_PARSER | DEBUG_DIRS,
    });