HTML::LoL 1.3

HTML::LoL is a Perl module that can construct HTML from pleasing Perl data structures.

SYNOPSIS

use HTML::LoL;

&hl(sub { print shift },
[body => {bgcolor => white},
[p => Document body, ...], ...]);

This module allows you to use Perl syntax to express HTML. The function hl() converts Perl list-of-list structures into HTML strings.

The first argument to hl() is a callback function thats passed one argument: a fragment of generated HTML. This callback is invoked repeatedly with successive fragments until all the HTML is generated; the callback is responsible for assembling the fragments in the desired output location (e.g., a string or file).

The remaining arguments to hl() are Perl objects representing HTML, as follows:

[TAG, ...]

TAG is a string (the name of an HTML element); remaining list items are any of the forms described herein. Corresponds to < TAG >...< /TAG >. If TAG is an "empty element" according to %HTML::Tagset::emptyElement, then the < /TAG > is omitted.

[TAG => {ATTR1 => VAL1, ATTR2 => VAL2, ...}, ...]

Corresponds to < TAG ATTR1="VAL1" ATTR2="VAL2" ... >...< /TAG >. (As above, < /TAG > is omitted if TAG is an "empty element.") Each ATTR is a string. Each VAL is either a string, in which case the value gets HTML-entity-encoded when copied to the output, or a list reference containing a single string (viz. [VAL]) in which case the value is copied literally.

Finally, for boolean-valued attributes, VAL may be hl_bool(BOOLEAN), where BOOLEAN is a Perl expression. If BOOLEAN is true, the attribute is included in the output; otherwise its omitted.

Any string

Strings are copied verbatim to the output after entity-encoding.

hl_noquote(...)

Suppresses entity-encoding of its arguments.

hl_requote(...)

Reenables entity-encoding of its arguments (use it inside a call to hl_noquote()).

hl_preserve(...)

Normally, HTML::LoL tries to optimize the whitespace in the HTML it emits (without changing the meaning of the HTML). This suppresses that behavior within its arguments.

hl_entity(NAME)

Includes the HTML character-entity named NAME.

The return value of hl() is the result of the last call to the callback function. This means its possible to write

&hl(sub { $accumulator .= shift }, ...)

to have hl() return a string containing the completely rendered HTML.