Language Elements

Textwire is designed to be easy to use for Go developers. It has a similar syntax to Go, but it is a separate language and has specific grammar to make it easier to use as a template language.

Syntax

Textwire has a simple syntax that is easy to learn. Here are some rules that you need to follow when writing Textwire code:

• All the HTML files that you want to parse with Textwire must have a .tw.html extension.
• All the Textwire code must be inside of the {{ }} brackets, or start with @ symbol.

VSCode Extension

If you use VSCode code editor, you can use our VSCode extension to get syntax highlighting and other features for Textwire.

Bracket statements

Bracket statements are special Textwire statements that start with {{ brackets and end with }}. They can be used to define variables, perform arithmetic operations, conditionally render content and so on. Bracket statements can be placed anywhere in the file except inside of directives.

• If you want multiple expressions inside {{ }} brackets, use ; to separate them. For example: {{ x = 5; y = 10 }}.
• All the bracket statements return a string. For example, {{ x = 5 }} will return an empty string, but {{ 5 + 5 }} will return "10".
• There are special bracket statements that need to be closed with {{ end }} keyword. For example, if statement and for statements.
• To escape {{ }} brackets, you can use \. For example \{{ x }} will not be parsed as a bracket statement but as HTML.

Directives

Directives are special Textwire statements that start with @ symbol. They can be used to define a layout, insert content into reserved places, if statements and so on. Directives can be placed anywhere in the file except inside of {{ }} brackets.

• To escape directive symbols, you can use \. For example \@if(x == 1) will not be parsed as a directive but as HTML
• You can use textwire expressions and variables inside of directives. For example @if(x == 1) or @use(layoutName)
• All the directives with body like @if, @for, @each, @component, etc. must be closed with @end keyword

Types and Literals

Textwire has a different type system that Go. When you pass a variable to Textwire, it will be automatically converted to a Textwire type. Here is a list of supported types that you can pass to Textwire or define in Textwire:

Textwire type	Equivalent Go types
Str	string
Bool	bool
Int	int, int8, int16, int32, int64, uint, uint8, uint16, uint32, uint64
Float	float32, float64
Nil	nil
Array	[]string, []bool, []int, []int64, []int32, []int16, []int8, []uint, []uint64, []uint32, []uint16, []uint8, []float64, []float32
Object	any struct can be just struct{} or a typed struct like User{} with any fields or a map type like map[string]string or something else

The biggest difference in types and type literals between Textwire and Go is that Textwire's literals have functions that you can call on them. For example, you can call a split function on a string literal like this: {{ "hello world".split(" ") }} to get an array of strings ["hello", "world"].