This module essentially does the same job as perl formats that you would 'write'.
The big advantage is that the text is read from files and so:
* may be easily changed by users
* may be chosen at run time; perhaps based on a country code
Buzz word alert: a paragraph is the basic unit of output text and will be read from a file.
The major features are:
Quick example:
use strict;
use Text::TemplateFill;
my $tmpl = new Text::TemplateFill;
# Set options:
# * where the templates are to be found
# * how to report errors
# * MSDOS line terminator
$tmpl->SetOpt('BaseDir' => "$TemplateDir/$Country", 'LineTerminator' => "\r\n");
# Read the paragraphs:
$tmpl->ReadPara('Header');
$tmpl->ReadPara('ItemPO');
# Bind variables in this program to the names used in the paragraphs:
$tmpl->BindVars('purchase_order_no' => \$PONo, 'orderdate' => \$Date, 'shipdate' => \$ShipDate);
...
print $tmpl->GeneratePara('Header');
...
while(...) {
$PONo = ....
$Date = ....
$ShipDate = ....
# Print the paragraph with the items that we have just read in
print $tmpl->GeneratePara('ItemPO');
}
TemplateDir/uk/Header might contain:
${} Store Purchase Orders.
${}
${Opt StartPage }
${}
${Opt StartPageTag Header } This is the default page header
${Opt Locale en_GB.ISO8859-1}
${} Reset the page totals of units:
${Calc PageTotal := 0 }
${Calc PageTotalLastPage := 0 }
${}
ACME Ltd PAGE ${PageNo}
PURCHASE ORDER
Destination Store: ${country}${branch%5.5d} Supplier Code: ${vendor_number%10.10d}
Supplier Name: ${vendor_name}
Purchase Order Number: ${purchase_order_no}
Order Date: ${orderdate@time<%Y %B %d>}
Delivery Date: ${shipdate@time<%Y %B %d>}
Quantity Current
Department SKU Description Ordered Received Price Value
========== === =========== ======= ======== ===== =====
________
${} end of paragraph
For examples of use see the test program: test.pl POD documentation is in the module.
You install the module by running these commands:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
Please report any bugs/suggestions to Alain Williams <addw@phcomp.co.uk>
It is understood that any contribution that is sent in for distribution with this module shall have copyright assigned to addw who will release it under the same licence as the rest of the module. Contributions will be acknowledged.
COPYRIGHT
/\
/ \ (C) Copyright 2002-2003 Parliament Hill Computers Ltd.
\ / All rights reserved.
\/
. Author: Alain Williams, July 2002
. addw@phcomp.co.uk
.
.
SCCS: @(#)README.in 1.2 03/27/03 10:40:02
This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself. You must preserve this entire copyright
notice in any use or distribution.
The author makes no warranty what so ever that this code works or is fit
for purpose: you are free to use this code on the understanding that any problems
are your responsibility.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation.
Note that the version number of this README may be different from the version of the module. The version number at the top of this file should correspond to the version number of the module at the time that it was bundled into a tar file.