Forums / Cotonti / Core Labs / Archive / XTemplate 2.0

When we played with XTemplate, we discovered that its code is quite messy and inefficient. We thought of probably rewriting it but at a very low priority. But a bit of spare time and an important security flaw I found in previous XTemplate implementation (PHP injection in logical statements) encouraged me to write a brand new implementation of XTemplate from scratch.

It is almost backwards compatible with original XTemplate, but it only implements those features that we use in Cotonti. This principle is called minimalistic. Here is what it supports:

• Blocks and original XTemplate flow control
• Variable substitutions (aka tags)
• Logical blocks (if/else/endif)
• Inclusion of other templates within templates with FILE

Here is what it does not support:

• Callbacks
• Customizable syntax

Another principle is strict. It means that:

• Statements are case sensitive. It will understand BEGIN but not begin:
  

  <!-- BEGIN: TEST -->
      <div>This is a valid block!</div>
  <!-- END: TEST -->
  
  <!-- begin: test -->
      <div>This block is invalid!</div>
  <!-- end: test -->
  

• Spaces matter, especially in logical statements. There must be spaces in statements at correct positions, e.g.
  

  <!-- IF {PHP.something} > 0 -->
      <div>This is a valid block!</div>
  <!-- ENDIF -->
  
  <!--IF{PHP.something}>0-->
      <div>This block is invalid!</div>
  <!--ENDIF-->
  

• Logical expressions are limited functionality. Supported logical operators are: AND, OR (AND has higher priority). Parenthesis is not supported. Supported comparison operators are: ==, !=, <, >, <=, >=, !. First operand of comparison must be a template variable e.g. {PHP.my.test}. Second operand may be a template variable, a number or a quoted string. Example:
  

  <!-- IF {USER_DETAILS_NAME} = 'Mark' AND {PHP.g} >= 6 OR !{PHP.error_string} -->
      <div>The expression is true!</div>
  <!-- ELSE -->
      <div>The expression is false!</div>
  <!--END:TEST-->
  

• Nested logical blocks are not supported, e.g.
  

  <!-- IF {PHP.foo} = 'test' -->
      <!-- IF {PHP.bar} -->
          <div>This block is invalid!</div>
      <!-- ENDIF -->
  <!-- ENDIF -->
  

• Template blocks inside of logical blocks are not supported, e.g.
  

  <!-- IF {PHP.foo} = 'test' -->
      <!-- BEGIN: BAR -->
          <div>This block is invalid!</div>
      <!-- END: BAR -->
  <!-- ENDIF -->
  

The third principle is fast. XTemplate 2.0 is much faster than original XTemplate 1.0, literally 2 times faster. Benchmarks demonstrate 5-35% RPS (requests per second) increase for entire pages after upgrade.

The fourth principle is lightweight. The code is 4 times smaller.

What's new in XTemplate 2.1:

1. Block names are no more space sensitive, so it's compatible with XTemplate 1.0
2. Support for {FILE "path/to/template.tpl"}
3. Disk cache for better performance

Sorry for misleading: XTemplate 1.0 is sensitive to case and spaces too. I just wanted to list these rules here.

Great to have logic blocks support while reducing load times!

I sniffed that indexpolls plugin contains space-insensitive tags - a lot of them

Correct tpl:

<!-- BEGIN: POLL_VIEW -->
{POLL_FORM_BEGIN}
<table>
<!-- BEGIN: POLLTABLE -->
<tr>
	<td><label>{POLL_INPUT}{POLL_OPTIONS}</label></td>
</tr>
<!-- END: POLLTABLE -->
<tr>
	<td>{POLL_FORM_BUTTON}</td>
</tr>
</table>
{POLL_FORM_END}
<!-- END: POLL_VIEW -->


<!-- BEGIN: POLL_VIEW_VOTED -->
<table style="width:100%;">
<!-- BEGIN: POLLTABLE -->
<tr>
	<td>{POLL_OPTIONS}</td>
	<td align="right">{POLL_PER}% ({POLL_COUNT})</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td colspan="2" align="right">
		<div style="width:180px; ">
			<div class="bar_back">
				<div class="bar_front" id="pr_{POLL_PER}"></div>
			</div>
		</div>
	</td>
</tr>
<!-- END: POLLTABLE -->
</table>
<script type="text/javascript">
	function anim(){
		$(".bar_front").each(function(){
			var percentage = Math.floor(($(this).attr("id").replace('pr_','')*180)/100)+'px';
			if ($(this).attr("id")!=""){$(this).css({width:"0"}).animate({width: percentage}, "slow");}
			$(this).attr("id","");
		});
	}
	anim();
</script>
<div><div id="pfsBack">{PHP.skinlang.page.Date} {POLL_SINCE_SHORT}</div> {PHP.skinlang.ratings.Votes} {POLL_VOTERS} </div>
<!-- END: POLL_VIEW_VOTED-->


<!-- BEGIN: POLL_VIEW_DISABLED -->
<table>
<!-- BEGIN: POLLTABLE -->
<tr>
	<td>{POLL_OPTIONS}</td>
</tr>
<!-- END: POLLTABLE -->
<tr>
	<td>{PHP.L.rat_registeredonly}</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- END: POLL_VIEW_DISABLED -->

<!-- BEGIN: POLL_VIEW_LOCKED -->
<table style="width:100%;">
<!-- BEGIN: POLLTABLE -->
<tr>
	<td>{POLL_OPTIONS}</td>
	<td align="right">{POLL_PER}% ({POLL_COUNT})</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td colspan="2" align="right">
		<div style="width:180px; ">
			<div class="bar_back">
				<div class="bar_front" style="width:{POLL_PER}%;"></div>
			</div>
		</div>
	</td>
</tr>
<!-- END: POLLTABLE -->
</table>
<div><div id="pfsBack">{PHP.skinlang.page.Date} {POLL_SINCE_SHORT}</div> {PHP.skinlang.ratings.Votes} {POLL_VOTERS} </div>
<!-- END: POLL_VIEW_LOCKED -->


<!-- BEGIN: INDEXPOLLS -->
<!-- BEGIN: POLL -->
<h5><a href="{IPOLLS_URL}">{IPOLLS_TITLE}</a></h5>
{IPOLLS_FORM}
<div style="text-align: right;">{PHP.skinlang.comments.Comment} {IPOLLS_COMMENTS}</div>
<hr />
<!-- END: POLL -->

<!-- BEGIN: ERROR -->
<div class="error">{IPOLLS_ERROR}</div>
<!-- END: ERROR -->

<p style="text-align: center;">{IPOLLS_ALL}</p>
<!-- END: INDEXPOLLS -->

Edit:
Also, I noticed that " in articles is escaped (\"Administrators\") - is it correct behaviour or should it be exchanged with html equivalent of this sign? (it doesn't have anything to do with X-Template, though)

In case of very old plugins like "contactus" (which don't containg tags nor even templates), the following error appears during installation:

Warning: mb_strpos() [function.mb-strpos]: Offset not contained in string in /home/sth/site/system/xtemplate.class.php on line 85
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 27132033 bytes) in /home/sth/site/system/xtemplate.class.php on line 287

Edit:

Hmm, the same happens in other plugins... now I'm not that sure what might be the cause. Other plugin parts? Or something with ajax?

Edit2:

Xtemplate sometimes acts unstable... like it displays the beginning of page.tpl like this:

<!-<div class="mboxHD"><a href="news/">News</a>

It's because it doesn't accept foreign letters in ANSI coding as well.
Also, BOM-removing code doesn't work, header.tpl with BOM mark is not loaded at all.
UTF-8 tpls without BOM are displayed correctly. The same with ANSI coded tpl without special letters.

Ok, here's header.tpl with BOM:
http://www.yot.nazwa.pl/header.zip