Render is a package that provides functionality for easily rendering JSON, XML, text, binary data, and HTML templates. This package is based on the [Martini](https://github.com/go-martini/martini) [render](https://github.com/martini-contrib/render) work.
## Block Deprecation Notice
Go 1.6 introduces a new [block](https://github.com/golang/go/blob/release-branch.go1.6/src/html/template/example_test.go#L128) action. This conflicts with Render's included `block` template function. To provide an easy migration path, a new function was created called `partial`. It is a duplicate of the old `block` function. It is advised that all users of the `block` function update their code to avoid any issues in the future. Previous to Go 1.6, Render's `block` functionality will continue to work but a message will be logged urging you to migrate to the new `partial` function.
## Usage
Render can be used with pretty much any web framework providing you can access the `http.ResponseWriter` from your handler. The rendering functions simply wraps Go's existing functionality for marshaling and rendering data.
- HTML: Uses the [html/template](http://golang.org/pkg/html/template/) package to render HTML templates.
- JSON: Uses the [encoding/json](http://golang.org/pkg/encoding/json/) package to marshal data into a JSON-encoded response.
- XML: Uses the [encoding/xml](http://golang.org/pkg/encoding/xml/) package to marshal data into an XML-encoded response.
- Binary data: Passes the incoming data straight through to the `http.ResponseWriter`.
- Text: Passes the incoming string straight through to the `http.ResponseWriter`.
~~~ go
// main.go
package main
import (
"encoding/xml"
"net/http"
"github.com/unrolled/render" // or "gopkg.in/unrolled/render.v1"
Render comes with a variety of configuration options _(Note: these are not the default option values. See the defaults below.)_:
~~~ go
// ...
r := render.New(render.Options{
Directory: "templates", // Specify what path to load the templates from.
FileSystem: &LocalFileSystem{}, // Specify filesystem from where files are loaded.
Asset: func(name string) ([]byte, error) { // Load from an Asset function instead of file.
return []byte("template content"), nil
},
AssetNames: func() []string { // Return a list of asset names for the Asset function
return []string{"filename.tmpl"}
},
Layout: "layout", // Specify a layout template. Layouts can call {{ yield }} to render the current template or {{ partial "css" }} to render a partial from the current template.
Extensions: []string{".tmpl", ".html"}, // Specify extensions to load for templates.
Funcs: []template.FuncMap{AppHelpers}, // Specify helper function maps for templates to access.
Delims: render.Delims{"{[{", "}]}"}, // Sets delimiters to the specified strings.
Charset: "UTF-8", // Sets encoding for content-types. Default is "UTF-8".
DisableCharset: true, // Prevents the charset from being appended to the content type header.
IndentJSON: true, // Output human readable JSON.
IndentXML: true, // Output human readable XML.
PrefixJSON: []byte(")]}',\n"), // Prefixes JSON responses with the given bytes.
PrefixXML: []byte("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>"), // Prefixes XML responses with the given bytes.
HTMLContentType: "application/xhtml+xml", // Output XHTML content type instead of default "text/html".
IsDevelopment: true, // Render will now recompile the templates on every HTML response.
StreamingJSON: true, // Streams the JSON response via json.Encoder.
RequirePartials: true, // Return an error if a template is missing a partial used in a layout.
DisableHTTPErrorRendering: true, // Disables automatic rendering of http.StatusInternalServerError when an error occurs.
})
// ...
~~~
### Default Options
These are the preset options for Render:
~~~ go
r := render.New()
// Is the same as the default configuration options:
r := render.New(render.Options{
Directory: "templates",
FileSystem: &LocalFileSystem{},
Asset: nil,
AssetNames: nil,
Layout: "",
Extensions: []string{".tmpl"},
Funcs: []template.FuncMap{},
Delims: render.Delims{"{{", "}}"},
Charset: "UTF-8",
DisableCharset: false,
IndentJSON: false,
IndentXML: false,
PrefixJSON: []byte(""),
PrefixXML: []byte(""),
BinaryContentType: "application/octet-stream",
HTMLContentType: "text/html",
JSONContentType: "application/json",
JSONPContentType: "application/javascript",
TextContentType: "text/plain",
XMLContentType: "application/xhtml+xml",
IsDevelopment: false,
UnEscapeHTML: false,
StreamingJSON: false,
RequirePartials: false,
DisableHTTPErrorRendering: false,
})
~~~
### JSON vs Streaming JSON
By default, Render does **not** stream JSON to the `http.ResponseWriter`. It instead marshalls your object into a byte array, and if no errors occurred, writes that byte array to the `http.ResponseWriter`. If you would like to use the built it in streaming functionality (`json.Encoder`), you can set the `StreamingJSON` setting to `true`. This will stream the output directly to the `http.ResponseWriter`. Also note that streaming is only implemented in `render.JSON` and not `render.JSONP`, and the `UnEscapeHTML` and `Indent` options are ignored when streaming.
### Loading Templates
By default Render will attempt to load templates with a '.tmpl' extension from the "templates" directory. Templates are found by traversing the templates directory and are named by path and basename. For instance, the following directory structure:
~~~
templates/
|
|__ admin/
| |
| |__ index.tmpl
| |
| |__ edit.tmpl
|
|__ home.tmpl
~~~
Will provide the following templates:
~~~
admin/index
admin/edit
home
~~~
You can also load templates from memory by providing the Asset and AssetNames options,
e.g. when generating an asset file using [go-bindata](https://github.com/jteeuwen/go-bindata).
### Layouts
Render provides `yield` and `partial` functions for layouts to access:
~~~ go
// ...
r := render.New(render.Options{
Layout: "layout",
})
// ...
~~~
~~~ html
<!-- templates/layout.tmpl -->
<html>
<head>
<title>My Layout</title>
<!-- Render the partial template called `css-$current_template` here -->
{{ partial "css" }}
</head>
<body>
<!-- render the partial template called `header-$current_template` here -->
{{ partial "header" }}
<!-- Render the current template here -->
{{ yield }}
<!-- render the partial template called `footer-$current_template` here -->
{{ partial "footer" }}
</body>
</html>
~~~
`current` can also be called to get the current template being rendered.
~~~ html
<!-- templates/layout.tmpl -->
<html>
<head>
<title>My Layout</title>
</head>
<body>
This is the {{ current }} page.
</body>
</html>
~~~
Partials are defined by individual templates as seen below. The partial template's
name needs to be defined as "{partial name}-{template name}".
~~~ html
<!-- templates/home.tmpl -->
{{ define "header-home" }}
<h1>Home</h1>
{{ end }}
{{ define "footer-home"}}
<p>The End</p>
{{ end }}
~~~
By default, the template is not required to define all partials referenced in the
layout. If you want an error to be returned when a template does not define a
partial, set `Options.RequirePartials = true`.
### Character Encodings
Render will automatically set the proper Content-Type header based on which function you call. See below for an example of what the default settings would output (note that UTF-8 is the default, and binary data does not output the charset):
~~~ go
// main.go
package main
import (
"encoding/xml"
"net/http"
"github.com/unrolled/render" // or "gopkg.in/unrolled/render.v1"
)
type ExampleXml struct {
XMLName xml.Name `xml:"example"`
One string `xml:"one,attr"`
Two string `xml:"two,attr"`
}
func main() {
r := render.New(render.Options{})
mux := http.NewServeMux()
// This will set the Content-Type header to "application/octet-stream".
// Note that this does not receive a charset value.