I must be overlooking something very simple here but I can't seem to figure out how to render a simple ERB template with values from a hash-map.
I am relatively new to ruby, coming from python. I have an ERB template (not HTML), which I need rendered with context that's to be taken from a hash-map, which I receive from an external source.
However, the documentation of ERB, states that the ERB.result
method takes a binding
. I learnt that they are something that hold the variable contexts in ruby (something like locals()
and globals()
in python, I presume?). But, I don't know how I can build a binding object out of my hash-map.
A little (a lot, actually) googling gave me this: http://refactormycode.com/codes/281-given-a-hash-of-variables-render-an-erb-template, which uses some ruby metaprogramming magic that escapes me.
So, isn't there a simple solution to this problem? Or is there a better templating engine (not tied to HTML) better suited for this? (I only chose ERB because its in the stdlib).
I don't know if this qualifies as "more elegant" or not:
require 'erb'
require 'ostruct'
class ErbalT < OpenStruct
def render(template)
ERB.new(template).result(binding)
end
end
et = ErbalT.new({ :first => 'Mislav', 'last' => 'Marohnic' })
puts et.render('Name: <%= first %> <%= last %>')
Or from a class method:
class ErbalT < OpenStruct
def self.render_from_hash(t, h)
ErbalT.new(h).render(t)
end
def render(template)
ERB.new(template).result(binding)
end
end
template = 'Name: <%= first %> <%= last %>'
vars = { :first => 'Mislav', 'last' => 'Marohnic' }
puts ErbalT::render_from_hash(template, vars)
(ErbalT has Erb, T for template, and sounds like "herbal tea". Naming things is hard.)
require 'erb'
require 'ostruct'
def erb(template, vars)
ERB.new(template).result(OpenStruct.new(vars).instance_eval { binding })
end
e.g
1.9.2p290 :008 > erb("Hey, <%= first_name %> <%= last_name %>", :first_name => "James", :last_name => "Moriarty")
=> "Hey, James Moriarty"
If you can use Erubis you have this functionality already:
irb(main):001:0> require 'erubis'
#=> true
irb(main):002:0> locals = { first:'Gavin', last:'Kistner' }
#=> {:first=>"Gavin", :last=>"Kistner"}
irb(main):003:0> Erubis::Eruby.new("I am <%=first%> <%=last%>").result(locals)
#=> "I am Gavin Kistner"
Ruby 2.5 has ERB#result_with_hash
which provides this functionality:
$ ruby -rerb -e 'p ERB.new("Hi <%= name %>").result_with_hash(name: "Tom")'
"Hi Tom"
The tricky part here is not to pollute binding with redundant local variables (like in top-rated answers):
require 'erb'
class TemplateRenderer
def self.empty_binding
binding
end
def self.render(template_content, locals = {})
b = empty_binding
locals.each { |k, v| b.local_variable_set(k, v) }
# puts b.local_variable_defined?(:template_content) #=> false
ERB.new(template_content).result(b)
end
end
# use it
TemplateRenderer.render('<%= x %> <%= y %>', x: 1, y: 2) #=> "1 2"
# use it 2: read template from file
TemplateRenderer.render(File.read('my_template.erb'), x: 1, y: 2)
Simple solution using Binding:
b = binding
b.local_variable_set(:a, 'a')
b.local_variable_set(:b, 'b')
ERB.new(template).result(b)
If you want to do things very simply, you can always just use explicit hash lookups inside the ERB template. Say you use "binding" to pass a hash variable called "hash" into the template, it would look like this:
<%= hash["key"] %>