Downloading and Installation
The official repository is currently at https://github.com/dlowe-net/stencl. Download the code, and place the directory with the asd file in ~/quicklisp/local-projects/ or somewhere in your asdf tree.
Writing templates
Here is an example of a stencl template:<html><head><title>[#{title}]</title><body>
<ul>[(dolist (item #{list})
(out ]
<li>[item]</li>[))]
</ul>
<p>[#{footer}]</p>
</body></html>
and here's how you can get the template output:
and here's the output:
<html><head><title>My title</title><body> <ul> <li>alpha</li> <li>beta</li> <li>gamma</li> <li>delta</li> </ul> <p>generated by stencl</p> </body></html>
In this example, there's some HTML, with some Common Lisp code thrown in. The code is separated from the data with square brackets ([]), there's a stencl function in the middle, and there's a weird #{} notation. What is going on here?
The OUT function is what generates the output of the template. It converts all of its arguments to strings automatically, then appends them to the output stream of the template. The entire template starts with an implicit stencl wrapper, so that everything inside is, by default, a string that is output.
The square brackets are tricky, though. They delimit a string, but the open bracket ([) closes a string and the close bracket (]) starts a new string. So when you see [(out ]<p>[item]</p>[)], this will produce a form (internally) like (out "<p>" item "</p>"). This preserves the clarity of the template with a simple transformation, and was the central beautiful insight of the BRL language.
The notation of #{foo} is a stencl innovation, and tells the stencl library that FOO should be a keyword parameter to the generated function.
HTML template