Statements

• Statements
  • If statement @if(x == 1)
  • Variable declaration {{ x = 5 }}
  • Use statement @use("layouts/main")
  • Insert statement @insert("title", "Home")
  • Reserve statement @reserve("title")
  • For loop @for(i = 0; i < 2; i++)
  • Each loop @each(name in names)
  • Component @component("components/post-card")

If statement

You can use if statements to conditionally render content. Here is an example of using if statements:

@if(name == "Anna")
    <p>Her name is Anna</p>
@end

You can also use else and elseif statements:

@if(x == 1)
    <p>x is 1</p>
@elseif(x == 2)
    <p>x is 2</p>
@else
    <p>x is not 1 and 2</p>
@end

For loop

You can use regular for loops to iterate over an array or a range of numbers.

This is a basic for loop that you can use. It has a declaration, condition and post statement. for <declaration>; <condition>; <post>. They are all optional. Here is an example of using for loop:

{{ names = ["Ann", "Serhii"] }}

@for(i = 0; i < names.len(); i++)
    <p>{{ names[i] }}</p>
@else
    <p>No names</p>
@end

Else is optional

The @else statement is optional and can be used to render content when there are no iterations in the loop.

You can also use @break, @breakIf(), @continue and @continueIf() directives inside of a for loop to break or continue the loop. @breakIf() and @continueIf() directives except a single argument, which is a condition that needs to be met to break or continue the loop.

Example

{{ names = ["Ann", "Serhii", "Vladimir"] }}

<ul>
    @for(i = 0; i < names.len(); i++)
        @continueIf(names[i] == "Serhii")
        <li>{{ names[i] }}</li>
    @end
</ul>

Each loop

Each statement is a special for loop that you can use to iterate over an array. It has a declaration and an array. @each(<declaration> in <array>). Here is an example of using each loop:

{{ names = ["Ann", "Serhii"] }}

@each(name in names)
    <p>{{ name }}</p>
@else
    <p>No names</p>
@end

Else is optional

The @else statement is optional and can be used to render content when the array is empty

Inside of every each loop, you can optionally use a loop object to get the current index of the item or other data that is updated on every iteration.

For example, {{ loop.index }} will return the current index of the item. Here is a list of all the properties of the loop object you can use:

Property	Type	Description
index	Integer	Current index number starting from 0
first	Boolean	Is the first item in a loop
last	Boolean	Is the last item in a loop
iter	Integer	Current iteration number starting from 1

Example

{{ names = ["Ann", "Serhii", "Vladimir"] }}

<ul>
    @each(name in names)
        <li>{{ loop.iter }}: {{ name }}</li>
    @end
</ul>

Output

<ul>

        <li>1: Anna</li>

        <li>2: Serhii</li>

        <li>3: Vladimir</li>

</ul>

You can also use @break, @breakIf(), @continue and @continueIf() directives inside of a for loop to break or continue the loop. @breakIf() and @continueIf() directives except a single argument, which is a condition that needs to be met to break or continue the loop.

Example

{{ names = ["Ann", "Serhii", "Vladimir"] }}

<ul>
    @each(name in names)
        @breakIf(name == "Serhii")
        <li>{{ name }}</li>
    @end
</ul>

Variable declaration

You can assign and declare variables by using the = operator. Here is an example of declaring variables:

{{ x = 5 }}
{{ x = 10 }}

You cannot assign values to variables that have a different type. For example, you cannot do {{ x = "Hello"; x = 3 }} because x is a string and then you are trying to assign an integer to it. In Textwire, you don't need to declare type of a variable, it will be automatically inferred from the value that you assign to it.

Declaration has no output

Variable declaration statements are not expressions! They don't return any value and can't be used inside of other expressions. Therefore, they don't print anything to the output.

Use statement

You have a "use statement" to define a layout for your template. Here is an example of using use statement:

@use("layouts/main")

Use statement excepts a string literal as an argument. The string literal should be a path to the layout file relative to a TemplateDir parameter that you set in the config. For example, if you set TemplateDir to "src/templates/layouts", then you can use the layout statement like @use("main") and it will look for the layout file in "src/templates/layouts/main.tw.html".

Understanding the @use Directive

When you use the @use directive, only the content inside @insert directives will be rendered, while the rest of the file’s content will be ignored. This is because the @use directive instructs the program to apply a layout file instead of rendering the current file directly. In this process, all reserved placeholders in the layout file are filled with the content specified within your @insert directives.

Insert statement

You can use insert statement to insert content into reserved places. You cannot use insert without defining a layout with Use statement in the same file. Here is an example of using insert statement in 2 ways, with content body and without it:

home.tw.html

@use("layouts/main")

<!-- It's useful when you want to pass a variable to the layout file -->
@insert("title", "Home page")

<!-- It's useful when you want to insert content into a reserved place -->
@insert("content")
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
    <p>This is a home page.</p>
@end

Insert statement excepts 2 arguments, the name of the reserved place and the optional content that you want to insert into the reserved place.

All the insert statements will be transferred to the layout file and will be placed into reserved places defined by a reserve statement.

Reserve statement

When you define a layout file for you template, you need to reserve places for dynamic content. You can reserve a place for a title, content, sidebar, footer and so on. Here is an example of using reserve statement:

layouts/main.tw.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>@reserve("title")</title>
</head>
<body>
    @reserve("content")
</body>
</html>

Pass variables to the layout

All the variables passed to the template file will be available in the layout file. It means that you can even replace @reserve("title") with {{ title }} and define the title variable in each template file. In other words, you can use variables in the layout file that are available in the template file.

Reserve statement excepts only a single argument, which the name of the reserved place. This name will be used in the insert statement to insert content into the reserved place.

Component

One of the best features of Textwire is the ability to use components. You can create a directory components in your templates and put all your components there. Then you can use the @component directive to include a component in your template. Let's see a simple example of a component:

Example of a component

components/post-card.tw.html

<div class="post">
    <h1>{{ post.title }}</h1>
    <p>{{ post.content }}</p>
</div>

Example of using a template

home.tw.html

<div class="posts">
    @each(post in posts)
        @component("components/post-card", { post })
    @end
</div>

The first argument of the @component directive is a path to the component file relative to the TemplateDir parameter that you set in the config.

The second optional argument is a Textwire object that you want to pass to the component. Here is another example of using a component with a second argument:

home.tw.html

<ul>
    @each(book in books)
        @component("parts/book", { completed: book.completed })
    @end
</ul>

You can also use slots in components to pass content to the component. Read about slots in the next section.

Component slots

Component slots is a very common feature in most template languages and frameworks like Vue.js or Laravel Blade. Textwire has named and default slots that you can use to pass content to a component.

There are 2 types of slots in Textwire, default and named slots. To pass and define a default slot you use @slot directive. To pass and define a named slot you use @slot("some-name") directive. Let's see an example of using slots in a component:

components/book.tw.html

<div class="book">
    @slot

    <h1>{{ book.title }}</h1>
    <p>{{ book.description }}</p>

    @slot('footer')
</div>

We can now use book.tw.html component in our Textwire files like this:

home.tw.html

@each(book in books)
    @component("components/book", { book })
        @slot
            <img src="{{ book.image }}" alt="{{ book.title }}">
        @end

        @slot('footer')
            <small>published by {{ book.author }}</small>
            <button>Read more</button>
        @end
    @end
@end

In this example we use default and named slots in a single component. You can use as many slots as you want in a single component as long as names are unique.