/ 
Template-Toolkit-2.26
River stage three • 569 direct dependents • 969 total dependents
/ Template::Plugins

NAME

Template::Plugins - Plugin provider module

SYNOPSIS

use Template::Plugins;

$plugin_provider = Template::Plugins->new(\%options);

($plugin, $error) = $plugin_provider->fetch($name, @args);

DESCRIPTION

The Template::Plugins module defines a provider class which can be used to load and instantiate Template Toolkit plugin modules.

METHODS

new(\%params)

Constructor method which instantiates and returns a reference to a Template::Plugins object. A reference to a hash array of configuration items may be passed as a parameter. These are described below.

Note that the Template front-end module creates a Template::Plugins provider, passing all configuration items. Thus, the examples shown below in the form:

$plugprov = Template::Plugins->new({
    PLUGIN_BASE => 'MyTemplate::Plugin',
    LOAD_PERL   => 1,
    ...
});

can also be used via the Template module as:

$ttengine = Template->new({
    PLUGIN_BASE => 'MyTemplate::Plugin',
    LOAD_PERL   => 1,
    ...
});

as well as the more explicit form of:

$plugprov = Template::Plugins->new({
    PLUGIN_BASE => 'MyTemplate::Plugin',
    LOAD_PERL   => 1,
    ...
});

$ttengine = Template->new({
    LOAD_PLUGINS => [ $plugprov ],
});

fetch($name, @args)

Called to request that a plugin of a given name be provided. The relevant module is first loaded (if necessary) and the load() class method called to return the factory class name (usually the same package name) or a factory object (a prototype). The new() method is then called as a class or object method against the factory, passing all remaining parameters.

Returns a reference to a new plugin object or ($error, STATUS_ERROR) on error. May also return (undef, STATUS_DECLINED) to decline to serve the request. If TOLERANT is set then all errors will be returned as declines.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

The following list summarises the configuration options that can be provided to the Template::Plugins new() constructor. Please consult Template::Manual::Config for further details and examples of each configuration option in use.

PLUGINS

The PLUGINS option can be used to provide a reference to a hash array that maps plugin names to Perl module names.

my $plugins = Template::Plugins->new({
    PLUGINS => {
        cgi => 'MyOrg::Template::Plugin::CGI',
        foo => 'MyOrg::Template::Plugin::Foo',
        bar => 'MyOrg::Template::Plugin::Bar',
    },  
});

PLUGIN_BASE

If a plugin is not defined in the PLUGINS hash then the PLUGIN_BASE is used to attempt to construct a correct Perl module name which can be successfully loaded.

# single value PLUGIN_BASE
my $plugins = Template::Plugins->new({
    PLUGIN_BASE => 'MyOrg::Template::Plugin',
});

# multiple value PLUGIN_BASE
my $plugins = Template::Plugins->new({
    PLUGIN_BASE => [   'MyOrg::Template::Plugin',
                       'YourOrg::Template::Plugin'  ],
});

LOAD_PERL

The LOAD_PERL option can be set to allow you to load regular Perl modules (i.e. those that don't reside in the Template::Plugin or another user-defined namespace) as plugins.

If a plugin cannot be loaded using the PLUGINS or PLUGIN_BASE approaches then, if the LOAD_PERL is set, the provider will make a final attempt to load the module without prepending any prefix to the module path.

Unlike regular plugins, modules loaded using LOAD_PERL do not receive a Template::Context reference as the first argument to the new() constructor method.

TOLERANT

The TOLERANT flag can be set to indicate that the Template::Plugins module should ignore any errors encountered while loading a plugin and instead return STATUS_DECLINED.

DEBUG

The DEBUG option can be used to enable debugging messages for the Template::Plugins module by setting it to include the DEBUG_PLUGINS value.

use Template::Constants qw( :debug );

my $template = Template->new({
    DEBUG => DEBUG_FILTERS | DEBUG_PLUGINS,
});

TEMPLATE TOOLKIT PLUGINS

Please see Template::Manual::Plugins For a complete list of all the plugin modules distributed with the Template Toolkit.

AUTHOR

Andy Wardley <abw@wardley.org> http://wardley.org/

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 1996-2007 Andy Wardley. All Rights Reserved.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

Template::Manual::Plugins, Template::Plugin, Template::Context, Template.