Dynamic TMPL_INCLUDE in HTML::Template

gryphon has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Greetings fellow monks,

I've been using HTML::Template in combination with CGI::Application for a while now with much success and joy. However, I've recently come into a situation where I need some advice. I have a series of templates being used by a Web application which use HTML::Template's TMPL_INCLUDE tag to insert additional templates. I'm quickly running into a situation where I'm going to need to define the name of the included template in the Perl code of application module, not the template tag. For example, here's what I have right now:

<TMPL_INCLUDE name="page_header_type_1.tmpl">
<P>Welcome to this page, <TMPL_VAR name=firstname>.</P>
<TMPL_INCLUDE name="page_footer_type_1.tmpl">
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And of course, the Perl code inside the CGI::Application-type screen handler subroutine looks something like this:

my $self = shift;
my $tmpl_obj = $self->load_tmpl('generic_page.tmpl',
  die_on_bad_params => 1, filter => \&tmpl_filter);

$tmpl_obj->param(
  firstname => 'Bob'
);

return $tmpl_obj->output;
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The problem is that now I need to have several "page_handler_type_*.tmpl" files, and I'll only know which one to include at run-time. What I'd really love to do is embed via TMPL_VAR the name of the to be included template file for the header inside the TMPL_INCLUDE tag, much like how you can embed TMPL_VAR tags inside any other HTML tag:

<TMPL_INCLUDE name="<TMPL_VAR name="includeheadername">">

Then I could just add "includeheadername" to the list of stuff sent to $tmpl_obj->param(), but that's not allowed. I could also construct the final page as page parts generated by multiple "$tmpl_obj"s inside the screen handler subroutine, but that starts to defeat the whole purpose of using HTML::Template in the first place.

Any thoughts, suggestions, comments about how best to solve this dilema?

-gryphon
code('Perl') || die;

Comment on Dynamic TMPL_INCLUDE in HTML::Template Select or Download Code

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Re: Dynamic TMPL_INCLUDE in HTML::Template
by samtregar (Abbot) on May 03, 2002 at 18:58 UTC

  <tmpl_include magic>
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   my $filename = "magic_include.tmpl";
   my $filter = sub {$$_[0] =~ s/<tmpl_include magic>/<tmpl_include $f
+ilename>/};
   my $t = HTML::Template->new(filename => "magic.tmpl",
                               filter   => $filter);
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I really should put this in the FAQ!

-sam

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Re: Dynamic TMPL_INCLUDE in HTML::Template
by vladb (Vicar) on May 03, 2002 at 18:10 UTC

<TMPL_VAR name="include_link">
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include_link => qq/<TMPL_INCLUDE name="$custom_link">/

<TMPL_INCLUDE name="foo_page.html">
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UPDATE:

main script:

use strict;
use HTML::Template;

my $tmpl = new HTML::Template(
                              filename => 'first.tmpl'
                              );

# generate custom page link...
my $custom_page = "second.tmpl";
# inject a custom piece of Template code
$tmpl->param(special_page_include => qq/<TMPL_INCLUDE name = "$custom_
+page">/);

# process custom built template..
my $tmpl_final = new  HTML::Template(scalarref => \$tmpl->output());
print $tmpl_final->output();
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first.tmpl

Including custom page...

<TMPL_VAR name = "special_page_include">

-----------

rest of the page
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second.tmpl

SECOND PAGE!
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script output (test run):

Including custom page...

SECOND PAGE!



-----------

rest of the page
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