The URL ftp://ftp.dev.ecos.de/pub/perl/embperl/HTML-Embperl-2.0b4.tar.gz
has entered CPAN as file: $CPAN/authors/id/G/GR/GRICHTER/HTML-Embperl-2.0b4.tar.gz size: 507965 bytes md5: 03f8ca074b7588fa11ecb8002d4b50bd Main new feature since 2.0b3 is the beginning support for XML, namely using libxslt or Xalan to do XSLT transformations and the implementing of recipes, which allows you to tell Embperl how to "cook" the result of a request by pluging modules which provides different transformations together. Together with the recipe handling the cacheing architecture has been enhanced to properly support recipes and not only be able to cache resulting pages, but any intermediate state. NOTE: Embperl now use Apache::SessionX per default, see below how you can use it with your old session config Embperl is a system for building dynamic websites with Perl. It gives you the power to embed Perl code in your HTML documents and the ability to build your Web site out of small reusable objects in an object-oriented style. You can also take advantage of all the usual Perl modules, (including DBI for database access) use their functionality and easily include their output in your web pages. Embperl has several features which are especially useful for creating HTML, including dynamic tables, form field processing, URL escaping/unescaping, session handling, and more. With 2.0 this feature are extented to use XML/XSLT, extent the Embperl's syntax, build taglibs, cacheing and more. See http://perl.apache.org/embperl/ (english) or http://www.ecos.de/embperl/ (german) for more information. For a list of all changes since 2.0b3 see the end of the mail. For all Embperl 1.x users here is a sumary of the difference of Embperl 2.0: Hints for using Embperl 2.x --------------------------- Debugging --------- Starting with 2.0b2 Embperl files can debugged via the interavtive debugger. The debugger shows the Embperl page source along with the correct linenumbers. You can do anything you can do inside a normal Perl programm via the debugger, e.g. show variables, modify variables, single step, set breakpoints etc. You can use the Perl interacive command line debugger via perl -d embpexec.pl file.epl or if you prefer a graphical debugger, try ddd (http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd/) it's a great tool, also for debugging any other perl script: ddd --debugger 'perl -d embpexec.pl file.epl' NOTE: embpexec.pl could be found in the Embperl source directory If you want to debug your pages, while running under mod_perl, Apache::DB is the right thing. Apache::DB is available from CPAN. The following difference to Embperl 1.x apply: ------------------------------------------------------ - The following options can currently only set from the httpd.conf: optRawInput, optKeepSpaces - The following options are currently not supported: optDisableHtmlScan, optDisableTableScan, optDisableInputScan, optDisableMetaScan optDisableHtmlScan can be replaced by switching the syntax e.g. [$syntax EmbperlBlocks $] # same as [- $optDisableHtmlScan = 1 -] here goes your code, Embperl will not interpret any html tags here [$syntax Embperl $] # same as [- $optDisableHtmlScan = 0 -] - Nesting must be properly. I.e. you cannot put a <table> tag (for an dynamic table) inside an if and the </table> inside another if. (That still works for static tables) - optUndefToEmptyValue is always set and cannot be disabled. - [$ foreach $x (@x) $] requires now the brackets around the array (like Perl) - [+ +] blocks must now contain a valid Perl expression. Embperl 1.x allows you to put multiple statements into such a block. For performance reasons this is not possible anymore. Also the expression must _not_ terminated with a semikolon. To let old code work, just wrap it into a do e.g. [+ do { my $a = $b + 5 ; $a } +] The following things are not fully tested/working yet: ------------------------------------------------------ - [- exit -] - safe namespaces - print to OUT does not work correctly inside of loops Embperl 1.x compatibility flag ------------------------------ If you don't have a separate computer to make the test setup, you can include PerlSetEnv EMBPERL_EP1COMPAT 1 at the top level of your httpd.conf, then Embperl will behave just the same like Embperl 1.3b7. In the directories where you make your tests, you include a PerlSetEnv EMBPERL_EP1COMPAT 0 to enable the new engine. but _DON'T_ use this one a production machine. While this compatibility mode is tested and shows no problems for me, it's not so hard tested as 1.3b7 itself! Addtional Config directives --------------------------- Caching parameter ----------------- execute parameter / httpd.conf environment variable / name inside page (must set inside [! !]) cache_key / EMBPERL_CACHE_KEY / $CACHE_KEY literal string that is appended to the cache key cache_key_options / EMBPERL_CACHE_KEY_OPTIONS / $CACHE_KEY_OPTIONS ckoptCarryOver = 1, use result from CacheKeyFunc of preivious step if any ckoptPathInfo = 2, include the PathInfo into CacheKey ckoptQueryInfo = 4, include the QueryInfo into CacheKey ckoptDontCachePost = 8, don't cache POST requests (not yet implemented) Default: all options set cache_key_func / EMBPERL_CACHE_KEY_FUNC / &CACHE_KEY function that should be called when build a cache key. The result is appended to the cache key. expires_func / EMBPERL_EXPIRES_FUNC / &EXPIRES function that is called everytime before data is taken from the cache. If this funtion returns true, the data from the cache isn't used anymore, but rebuild. Function could be either a coderef (when passed to Execute), a name of a subroutine or a string starting with "sub " in which case it is compiled as anoymous subroutine. expires_in / EMBPERL_EXPIRES_IN / $EXPIRES Time in seconds that the output schould be cached. (0 = never, -1 = forever) expires_in / EMBPERL_EXPIRES_FILENAME / $EXPIRES_FILENAME Expires when the given file has changed Syntax switching ---------------- syntax / EMBPERL_SYNTAX / [$ syntax $] Used to tell Embperl which syntax to use inside a page. Embperl comes with the following syntaxes: - EmbperlHTML # all the HTML tag that Embperl recognizes by default - EmbperlBlocks # all the [ ] blocks that Embperl supports - Embperl # (default; contains EmbperlHtml and EmbperlBlocks) - ASP # <% %> and <%= %>, see perldoc HTML::Embperl::Syntax::ASP - SSI # Server Side Includes, see perldoc HTML::Embperl::Syntax::SSI - Perl # File contains pure Perl (similar to Apache::Registry), but # can be used inside EmbperlObject - Text # File contains only Text, no actions is taken on the Text - Mail # Defines the <mail:send> tag, for sending mail. This is an # example for a taglib, which could be a base for writing # your own taglib to extent the number of available tags - POD # translates pod files to XML, which can be converted to # the desired output format by an XSLT transformation - RTF # Can be used to process word processing documents in RTF format You can get a description for each syntax if you type perldoc HTML::Embperl::Syntax::xxx where xxx is the name of the syntax. You can also specify multiple syntaxes e.g. PerlSetEnv EMBPERL_SYNTAX "Embperl SSI" Execute ({inputfile => '*', syntax => 'Embperl ASP'}) ; The syntax metacommand allows to switch the syntax or to add or subtract syntaxes e.g. [$ syntax + Mail $] will add the Mail taglib so the <mail:send> tag is available after this line. [$ syntax - Mail $] now the <mail:send> tag is unknown again [$ syntax SSI $] now you can only use SSI commands inside your page. Session handling ---------------- Session handling has changed from 1.3.3 to 1.3.4 and 2.0b3 to 2.0b4. You must either install Apache::SessionX or set PerlSetEnv EMBPERL_SESSION_HANDLER_CLASS "HTML::Embperl::Session" to get the old behaviour. Recipes ------- Starting with 2.0b4 Embperl introduces the concept of recipes. A recipe basicly tells Embperl how the request should be processed. While before 2.0b4 you can have only one processor that works on the request (the Embperl processor, also you are able to define different syntaxes), now you can have multiple of them arragend in a pipeline or even a tree. While you are able to give the full recipe when calling Execute, this is not very convenient, so normaly you will only give the name of a recipe, either as parameter 'recipe' to Execute or as EMBPERL_RECIPE in your httpd.conf. Of course you can have different recipes for different locations and/or files. A recipe is constructed out of providers. A provider can either be read some source or do some processing on a source. There is no restriction what sort of data a provider has as in- and output you just have to make sure that output format of a provider matches the input format of the next provider. In the current implementation Embperl comes with a set of build in providers: - file read file data - memory get data from a scalar - epparse parse file into a Embperl tree structure - epcompile compile Embperl tree structure - eprun execute Embperl tree structure - eptostring convert Embperl tree structure to string - libxslt-parse-xml parse xml source for libxslt - libxslt-compile-xsl parse and compile stylesheet for libxslt - libxslt do a xsl transformation via libxslt - xalan-parse-xml parse xml source for xalan - xalan-compile-xsl parse and compile stylesheet for xalan - xalan do a xsl transformation via xalan There is a C interface, so new custom providers can be written, but what it make real usefull is, that the next release of Embperl will contain a Perl interface, so you can write your own providers in Perl. The default recipe is named Embperl and contains the following providers: +-----------+ + file + +-----------+ | v +-----------+ + epparse + +-----------+ | v +-----------+ + epcompile + +-----------+ | v +-----------+ + eprun + +-----------+ This cause Embperl to behave like it has done in the past, when no recipes exists. Each intermediate result could be cached. So for example you are able to cache the already parsed XML or compiled stylesheet in memory, without the need to reparse/recompile it over and over again. Another nice thing of recipes are that they are not staticly. A recipe is defined by a recipe object. When a request comes in Embperl calls the new method of the recipe object, which should return a hash that describes what Embperl has to do. The new method can of course build the hash dynamicly, looking, for example, at the request parameters like filename, formvalues, mime type or whatever. For example if you give a scalar as input the Embperl recipe replaces the file provider with a memory provider. Addtionaly you can specify more then one recipe (spearated by spaces). Embperl will all the new methods in turn until the first not returns undef. This way you can create recipes that are know for what they are responsible. One possibility would be to check the file extention and only return the recipe if it matches. Much more sophistcated things are possible... See perldoc HTML::Embperl::Recipe how to create your own provider. XML, XSLT --------- As written above Embperl now contains provider for doing XSLT transformations. More XML will come in the next releases. The easiest thing is to use the XSLT stuff thru the predefined recipes: EmbperlLibXSLT the result of Embperl will run thru the Gone libxslt EmbperlXalanXSLT the result of Embperl will run thru Xalan-C EmbperlXSLT the result of Embperl will run thru the XSL transformer given by xsltproc or EMBPERL_XSLTPROC LibXSLT run source thru the Gone libxslt XalanXSLT run source thru Xalan-C XSLT run source thru the XSL transformer given by xsltproc or EMBPERL_XSLTPROC For example including the result of an XSLT transformation into your html page could look like this: <html><head><title>Include XML via XSLT</title></head> <body> <h1>Start xml</h1> [- Execute ({inputfile => 'foo.xml', recipe => 'EmbperlXalanXSLT', xsltstylesheet => 'foo.xsl'}) ; -] <h1>END</h1> </body> </html> As you already guess the xsltstylesheet parameter gives the name of the xsl file. You can also use the EMBPERL_XSLTSTYLESHEET configuration directive to set it from your configuration file. By setting EMBPERL_ESCMODE (or $escmode) to 15 you get the correct escaping for XML. ------------------- Changes since 2.0b3: - Enhancements for RTF syntax, allowing no IF fields and passes thru any unkown fields. - Fixed problem when loading syntax. Spotted by Michael Stevens. - Allow Perl code inside of HTML attributes in ASP syntax, together with EmbperlHTML syntax. Spotted by Ivan G. Shevchenko. - Added POD syntax, which converts POD to XML, which can transformed to any other output format using XSLT. - Enhanced Makefile.PL to support plugins for linking of extra libraries. - Added support for libxslt - Added support for Xalan-C XSLT - Added the concept of recipes which allows to dynamicly tell Embperl how to process a request. A recipe is basicly a tree structure with put different providers together. Every provider can act upon the output of the preceeding providers. See README.v2 and perldoc HTML::Embperl::Recipe for more details. - Added new configuration directive EMBPERL_RECIPE/Execute parameter recipe, which tells Embperl how a file should be processed. - Added recipes for XSLT transformation. - Rebuild cache management to work together with recipes. Now every intermediate step could be cached. - Add new debug flags dbgOutput, dbgRun, dbgCache, dbgCompile, dbgXML, dbgXSLT, dbgCheckpoint, dbgDOM to have a more fine control what's going into the log file - Changes in Embperl's internal tree representation, to fix serveral small problems and in preparation for proper XML handling. - print OUT inside loop works now correctly - Added new escmode 8/15 which generates correct XML escaping. - $row_foo will no longer treated as $row. Bug reported by Dave Fischer. - Add patch from Wim Kerkhoff so SSI syntax works together with EmbperlObject, i.e. included files are searched in the same way as normal Embperl files. - Add new method AddTagInside in HTML::Embperl::Syntax::HTML to allow tags inside of other tags. - Added method $r -> Espace for html & url escaping - URL escpage # to %23 - use Content-Lenght HTTP Header instead of $ENV{CONTENT_LENGTH} when running under mod_perl and win32. This fixes a bug with POSTed data reported by Lukas Zapletal. - Display correct Apache module name in Makefile.PL when requesting path for Apache module. Patch from James Lee. - New session handling using Apache::SessionX. (This also fixes problem with MD5 and Perl 5.6.1) - Fixed a bug that cause file-uploads to fail for the first request to a file when running under EmbperlObject. Reported by Thoren Johne. - Make sure the HTML::Embperl::Mail generates correct line endings - If Perl's STDOUT and/or STDIN are tied to any package, Embperl now calls the Perl methods PRINT and READ for doing I/O. This currently only works, when not running under mod_perl. - Embperl can now run under FastCGI. Use embpfastcgi.pl instead of embpcgi.pl. - Delete unnecessary PerlFixupHandler from httpd.conf.src for make test. Reported by David Merberg. - Add undef to %idat for select tag with nothing selected if optAllFormdata is set. - Cleanup of DBIx::Recordset objects now honors the setting in %CLEANUP. Problem reported by Kee Hinckley. - Embperl can now use encrypted sourcefiles. See crypto/README for details. - Embperl can now be installed as Apache and non Apache version on the same system. This is neccessary to work on Windows in- and outside of Apache. - Fixed a linkage problem with symbol embperl_module, first reported by GustavKristoffer Ek. - error message now always contain a filename. - Added optShowBacktrace to enable backtrace of filename in error messages - Removed obsolete debug flags dbgDisableCache, dbgWatchScalar, dbgEarlyHttpHeader Enjoy Gerald ------------------------------------------------------------- Gerald Richter ecos electronic communication services gmbh Internetconnect * Webserver/-design/-datenbanken * Consulting Post: Tulpenstrasse 5 D-55276 Dienheim b. Mainz E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: +49 6133 925131 WWW: http://www.ecos.de Fax: +49 6133 925152 -------------------------------------------------------------