HTML::LoL - construct HTML from pleasing Perl data structures
use HTML::LoL;
&hl(sub { print shift },
[body => {bgcolor => 'white'},
[p => 'Document body', ...], ...]);
See EXAMPLE section below.
This module allows you to use Perl syntax to express HTML. The function hl() converts Perl list-of-list structures into HTML strings.
The first argument to hl() is a callback function that's passed one argument: a fragment of generated HTML. This callback is invoked repeatedly with successive fragments until all the HTML is generated; the callback is responsible for assembling the fragments in the desired output location (e.g., a string or file).
The remaining arguments to hl() are Perl objects representing HTML, as follows:
TAG is a string (the name of an HTML element); remaining list items are any of the forms described herein. Corresponds to <TAG>...</TAG>. If TAG is an "empty element" according to %HTML::Tagset::emptyElement, then the </TAG> is omitted.
Corresponds to <TAG ATTR1="VAL1" ATTR2="VAL2" ...>...</TAG>. (As above, </TAG> is omitted if TAG is an "empty element.") Each ATTR is a string. Each VAL is either a string, in which case the value gets HTML-entity-encoded when copied to the output, or a list reference containing a single string (viz. [VAL]) in which case the value is copied literally.
Finally, for boolean-valued attributes, VAL may be hl_bool(BOOLEAN), where BOOLEAN is a Perl expression. If BOOLEAN is true, the attribute is included in the output; otherwise it's omitted.
Strings are copied verbatim to the output after entity-encoding.
hl_noquote(...)Suppresses entity-encoding of its arguments.
hl_requote(...)Reenables entity-encoding of its arguments (use it inside a call to hl_noquote()).
hl_preserve(...)Normally, HTML::LoL tries to optimize the whitespace in the HTML it emits (without changing the meaning of the HTML). This suppresses that behavior within its arguments.
hl_entity(NAME)Includes the HTML character-entity named NAME.
The return value of hl() is the result of the last call to the callback function. This means it's possible to write
&hl(sub { $accumulator .= shift }, ...)
to have hl() return a string containing the completely rendered HTML.
&hl(sub { print shift },
[table => {border => 2, width => '80%'},
[tr =>
[td => {nowrap => &hl_bool(1)}, 'This & that'],
[td => {nowrap => &hl_bool(0)}, '<b>This is not bold</b>'],
[td => [b => 'But this is']],
[td => &hl_noquote('<b>And so is this</b>')]]]);
prints:
<table width="80%" border="2">
<tr>
<td nowrap>This & that</td>
<td><b>This is not bold</b></td>
<td><b>But this is</b></td>
<td><b>And so is this</b></td>
</tr>
</table>
perllol(1), HTML::Tree(3)
This module was inspired by the new_from_lol() function in the HTML::Tree package by Gisle Aas and Sean M. Burke.
Copyright 2000-2002 Bob Glickstein.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Bob Glickstein - http://www.zanshin.com/bobg/ - bobg@zanshin.com
