Text::Macro 0.07

Text::Macro Perl module is a template facility whos focus is on generating code such as c, java or sql. While generating perl code is also possible, there is a potential conflict between the control-symbol and the perl comment symbol.
Perl is excelent at manipulating text, and it begs the question why one would need such a tool.
The answer is that good code design should be such that applications should not have to be modified so as to make configuration changes. Thus external configuration files/data is used. However, if these files are read in as perl-code, then simple errors could crash the whole application (or provide subtle security risks). Further, it is often desired to invert the control flow and text-data (namely, make the embedded strings primary, and control-flow secondary). This is the ASP model, and for 90% HTML, 10% code, this works great.
This module supports many control facilities which directly translate into perl-control facilities (e.g. inverting the ASP-style code back into perl-style behind the scenes). The inversion process is cached in a simple user object.
The module was initially inspired by Text::FastTemplate by Robert Lehr, whos module didnt completely fullfill my needs.
Main features:
- fast, simple, robust
- code-generating-centric feature-set
- substitutions stand-out from template
- macro-code embedded in text
- OOP
- external and internal includes (for clearifying complex control-flow)
- scoped variable-substitutions
- line-based processing (like cpp)
- usable error messages