[stringtemplate-interest] Output string lengths..

[Rob Hill]

Lol , nice ;)

 

My rather smaller frontal lobe was thinking

 

<str; format="%.40s"; >

Same kind of thing as the null= attribute.

 

Obviously your pad method is far more flexible, but is complete overkill for
what i required.

In fact after re-visiting my padded string requirement, it's far simpler to
pad the string before I stuff it in the template.

 

After writing a custom renderer, i couldn't see the point in actually adding
all the code to put the padding in a class, and then set the renderer, when
i could just pad the string using the same function before i insert it into
the template.

?

Infact, im not sure i see the point in custom renderers at all now i think
about it.?

I may have lost the plot though, it seems to happen frighteningly often
these days!

 

I do like the chars function though, and i think it would be nice addition
to the ST repertoire.

 

Cheers,

Rob

 

 

 

From: stringtemplate-interest-bounces at antlr.org
[mailto:stringtemplate-interest-bounces at antlr.org] On Behalf Of John Snyders
Sent: 29 November 2006 19:02
To: Hill, Robert; StringTemplate
Subject: Re: [stringtemplate-interest] Output string lengths..

 

Here is a crazy thought.

 

If you could iterate over the characters in a string then the template could
do the padding.

I created a function "chars" which returns an iterator for its string
argument.

For example 

  $s1$
  $chars(s1); separator="-"$

will produce

  SOMETHING
  S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G

when s1="SOMETHING"

 

With these attributes added in the controller:

  test.setAttribute("s1", "SOMETHING");
  test.setAttribute("s2", "NOTHING");
  test.setAttribute("space40", "                                        ");

This template

  |$chars(s1),chars(space40): { ch, sp | $ch;null={$sp$}$}$|
  |$chars(s2),chars(space40): { ch, sp | $ch;null={$sp$}$}$|

produces this output

 |SOMETHING                               |
|NOTHING                                 |
(forgive the proportional font of this email)

 

Does the chars function have any other use? Well it could be used to do what
the CSS pseudo element ":first-letter" does. For example:

  <span class="fancy">$first(chars(s1))$</span>$rest(chars(s1))$
produces:

  <span class="fancy">S</span>OMETHING

 

This gives some stylistic control over individual letters to the template.

 

What do people think, is the chars function useful? 

As for padding, I'm not sure I like this solution better than the pad
option.

 

-John

 

Here is the code just incase someone wants to play with this:

 

Added to ASTExpr.java

private static class StringIterator implements Iterator
{
 private String str;
 private int index;
 public StringIterator(String str) {
  this.str = str;
  index = 0;
 }
 public boolean hasNext() {
  return index < str.length();
 }

 

 public Object next() {
  String next = String.valueOf(str.charAt(index));
  index++;
  return next;
 }

 

 public void remove() {
  throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
 }
  
}

 

public Object chars(Object attribute) {
 if ( attribute==null ) {
  return null;
 }
 Object chars = null;
 if ( attribute instanceof String ) {
  String str = (String)attribute;
  chars = new StringIterator(str);
 }
 else if ( attribute instanceof StringTemplate )
 {
    StringTemplate st = (StringTemplate)attribute;
    String str = st.toString();
    chars = new StringIterator(str);
 }

 

 return chars;
}

Add this to eval.g near trunc
      | "chars" a=singleFunctionArg {value=chunk.chars(a);}

 

Add this to action.g near trunc
     |   "chars"

 

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: stringtemplate-interest-bounces at antlr.org
[mailto:stringtemplate-interest-bounces at antlr.org]On Behalf Of Hill, Robert
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 2:27 AM
To: StringTemplate
Subject: [stringtemplate-interest] Output string lengths..

Is there anyway I can make each string in a list be rendered at a minimum
length? 
Id like some things to line up in columns, and want to avoid any sort of
formatting occuring in the code, before I stuff the strings into the
templates.

Is this a job for a custom format renderer, or is there a way to do this
directly within string template? 

Ta! 

Regards, 

Rob 

Robert Hill 
Information Engineer 
E       UKIMEA DWP ACU, Hallamshire Business Park, 100 Napier St, Sheffield.
S11 8HD 
email:  rhill03 at eds.com 
Office: +44 114 291 1928 
Mobile: +44 7903 185 516 

 

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