Introduction

Parser package

The Parser package extends the Core View class to be able to use any type of template parser you want.

The Parser package changes nothing about the way you work with Views, but it will allow you to use any template parser you want instead of PHP. The package comes with many drivers for parsers like Dwoo, Haml, Jade, Lex, Markdown, Mustache, PHPTal, Smarty and Twig.

Which parser is used is determined by the file extension of your view file. Normal views, parsed by PHP use the file extension .php. This is also the default, if no extension is specified, it is assumed to have the .php extension.

All others have their own specific extension, for example foo.mustache will use the Mustache driver, foo.tpl will use the Dwoo driver, foo.lex will use the Lex driver, and so on. The default extension can be changed in config).

Installation

The Parser package is included in the Fuel download. To use it you must first enable it by adding it to your config:

'always_load' => array(
	'packages' => array(
		'parser',
	),
),

To be able to use one of the supported parsers, you need to install them via composer. Simply add the libraries to your project's composer.json then run php composer.phar install:

{
    "require": {
        "dwoo/dwoo" : "*",
        "mustache/mustache" : "*",
        "smarty/smarty" : "*",
        "twig/twig" : "*",
        "mthaml/mthaml": "*",
		"pyrocms/lex": "*"
    }
}

Note that the Markdown parser is installed by default, as it is also used by the FuelPHP core class Markdown.

Libraries that can not be installed through composer are expected to be installed in APPPATH/vendor/lib_name (capitalize lib_name), and you'll have to download them yourself. Don't change the casing or anything, keep it as much original as possible within the vendor/lib_name dir to keep updating easy (also because some come with their own autoloader).

Configuration

Parser can be configured in a config/parser.php file and takes the following keys:

Param	Type	Default	Description
extensions	array	(array with extensions and View class which parses them)	Defines which extensions are valid and what their View driver is. ex: 'md' => 'View_Markdown'

For every View driver supported, the configuration file contains a array entry with the same name as the driver, which lists the driver specific configuration (limited to the configuration items supported by the driver. This may be a subset of all configuration the parser supports).

Runtime Configuration

All drivers have a parser() method that will allow you to access the current Parser object. This is a convention and not a requirement and might be different on 3rd party drivers.

// Clear the cache for a specific Smarty template
$view = View::forge('example.smarty');
$view->parser()->clearCache('example.smarty');

// Example static usage
View_Smarty::parser()->clearCache('example.smarty');

This can also be used when you need to pass custom configuration to the driver.