cl-why

2018-02-28

(X)HTML generation macros

Upstream URL

github.com/jpcima/cl-why

Author

JP Cimalando

License

BSD
README

cl-why

(X)HTML generation macros, fork of CL-WHO

Reason behind CL-WHY

This project is intended as an improvement over CL-WHO, a Common Lisp library for HTML generation.

I develop this fork because while a tree DSL is an elegant way to construct HTML documents, I disagree with some ideas of the original specification.

One particular problem with CL-WHO is about escaping: values are not escaped unless it is explicitly demanded. On the contrary, the values should be written escaped by default and raw by exception; it reduces the probability of making mistakes and helps to ensure creating well-formed documents.

Installing

Download CL-WHY in a path recognized by Quicklisp and execute the following command.

(ql:quickload '#:cl-why)

Differences

The usage of CL-WHY is largely similar to CL-WHO whose documentation is located here.

Instead of a complete documentation I make a list of differences between these two libraries.

  • Automatic escaping of attribute values and string nodes

    (with-html-output-to-string (s) (:a :href "a\"test" "foo<>bar"))
    CL-WHY: "<a href='a&quot;test'>foo&lt;&gt;bar</a>"
    CL-WHO: "<a href='a\"test'>foo<>bar</a>"
    
  • Possibility to include raw strings, to use carefully

    (with-html-output-to-string (s) (:div (raw "<span>Hello</span>")))
    CL-WHY: "<div><span>Hello</span></div>"
    
  • Accepted non-null values other than string at child node context (CL-WHO silently ignores these)

    (with-html-output-to-string (s) (:body 123 "abc" 456))
    CL-WHY: "<body>123abc456</body>"
    CL-WHO: "<body>abc</body>"
    
  • Removed macros str and fmt, found no longer useful or redundant

  • Conditional compilation is updated for recent Common Lisp implementations

    • ELEMENT-TYPE support added in SBCL and ECL

Dependencies (1)

  • flexi-streams

Dependents (0)

    • GitHub
    • Quicklisp