twigc

twigc is a user-friendly command-line utility for rendering (compiling) Twig templates. It's well suited for testing and for interacting with Twig through shell scripts and other command-line applications.

Usage

twigc can render Twig templates supplied via either standard input or a file path.

Usage: twigc [options] [<template>]

Options:
  -h, --help               Display this usage help and exit
  -V, --version            Display version information and exit
  --credits                Display dependency information and exit
  --cache <dir>            Enable caching to specified directory
  -d, --dir <dir>          Add specified search directory to loader
  -e, --escape <strategy>  Specify default auto-escaping strategy
  -E, --env                Derive input data from environment
  -j, --json <dict/file>   Derive input data from specified JSON file or
                           dictionary string
  -p, --pair <input>       Derive input data from specified key=value pair
  --query <input>          Derive input data from specified URL query string
  -s, --strict             Throw exception when undefined variable is referenced

Passing input data

Input data can be passed to the template using a simple key=value syntax with -p:

% twigc -p 'name=dana' <<< 'Hello, {{ name }}!'
Hello, dana!

Of course, only basic string values can be provided this way. For more complex data, you can use the JSON option -j:

% twigc -j '{"numbers": [1, 2, 3]}' <<< '{{ numbers|join("... ") }}!'
1... 2... 3!

JSON data can also be provided by file path or on standard input:

# JSON from file, template from standard input
% cat numbers.json
{"numbers": [1, 2, 3]}
% twigc -j numbers.json <<< '{{ numbers|join("... ") }}!'
1... 2... 3!

# JSON from standard input, template from file
% cat numbers.twig
{{ numbers|join("... ") }}!
% twigc -j - numbers.twig <<< '{"numbers": [1, 2, 3]}'
1... 2... 3!

(twigc determines whether the argument to -j is a dictionary string or a file name based on whether the first character is a {; if you have a file name that looks like that, use the absolute path or put ./ in front of it — for example, twigc -j './{myfile}.json'.)

If variables_order is configured appropriately in your php.ini, you can use the -E option to inherit input data from the environment:

% NAME=dana twigc -E <<< 'Hello, {{ NAME }}!'
Hello, dana!

(If you don't have E in variables_order, you'll get an error.)

Lastly, there's a --query option in case you want to pass input as a URL query string:

% twigc --query '?foo=&name=dana&bar=' <<< 'Hello, {{ name }}!'
Hello, dana!

All of the aforementioned input options can be given multiple times and in any combination, but the values associated with each input type override other values with the same name using the following order of precedence (from lowest to highest): environment, query, JSON, pair. In other words:

# Pair has higher precedence than environment
% name=foo twigc -p name=bar -E <<< '{{ name }} wins'
bar wins

# JSON has higher precedence than query
% twigc -j '{"name": "foo"}' --query name=bar <<< '{{ name }} wins'
foo wins

# Inputs of the same type have equal precedence and are taken in the order given
% twigc -j '{"name": "foo"}' -p name=bar -p name=baz <<< '{{ name }} wins'
baz wins

Configuring auto-escaping

Normally, input data is auto-escaped during rendering based on the template file extension (or disabled by default if using standard input), but this is configurable:

# No auto-escaping by default on standard input
% twigc -p 'html=<p>Hello!</p>' <<< '{{ html }}'
<p>Hello!</p>

# Explicit HTML auto-escaping
% twigc -e html -p 'html=<p>Hello!</p>' <<< '{{ html }}'
&lt;p&gt;Hello!&lt;/p&gt;

# Explicit JavaScript auto-escaping
% twigc -e js -p 'html=<p>Hello!</p>' <<< '{{ html }}'
\x3Cp\x3EHello\x21\x3C\x2Fp\x3E

# Explicit URL auto-escaping
% twigc -e url -p 'html=<p>Hello!</p>' <<< '{{ html }}'
%3Cp%3EHello%21%3C%2Fp%3E

Of course, you can always control escaping from within the template using the escape filter.

The following auto-escape methods are available:

• none (aka false, no, never, &c.) — No escaping is performed; the input is rendered as-is. This is the default for templates taken from standard input and for files with unrecognised extensions.

• html (aka true, yes, always, &c.) — Ampersand-escaping as suitable for inclusion in an HTML body. This is the most common escaping method used for rendering Web pages with Twig, and the default method used by the escape filter.

• css — Hex-escaping as suitable for inclusion in a CSS value or identifier.

• html_attr — Ampersand-escaping as suitable for inclusion in an HTML attribute value. This is similar to the html method, but more characters are escaped.

• js — Hex-escaping as suitable for inclusion in a JavaScript string or identifier.

• json — Serialisation according to JSON rules. Strings are quoted and escaped, integers are left bare, &c. JSON escaping can often be used to produce strings for config files and even languages like C (though incompatibilities do exist — be careful).

• sh — Double-quoting and meta-character escaping according to shell rules. This method uses double-quoted strings rather than the single-quote method used by e.g. escapeshellarg() because it is more compatible with software that supports only a sub-set of the shell's string syntax (such as 'dotenv' libraries).

• url — Percent-escaping as suitable for inclusion in a URL path segment or query parameter.

Enabling strict mode

By default, references in the template to undefined variables are silently ignored, but you can make Twig throw an exception with the -s option:

% twigc <<< 'Hello, {{ name }}!'
Hello, !

% twigc -s <<< 'Hello, {{ name }}!'
twigc: Variable "name" does not exist in "-" at line 1.

Use of this option is recommended for reliability in scripting scenarios.

Specifying search directories

If a template file name was provided, the file's parent directory is automatically added as an include search path; if standard input was used, no search path is set at all by default. In either case, one or more additional search paths can be explicitly supplied on the command line:

% cat include.twig
Hello!

% twigc <<< '{% include "include.twig" %}'
twigc: Template "include.twig" is not defined in "-" at line 1.

% twigc -d '.' <<< '{% include "include.twig" %}'
Hello!

Installation

twigc is provided as a self-contained executable archive; to download it, see the releases page.

Of course, you can also build it from source:

% git clone https://github.com/okdana/twigc
% cd twigc
% make

Requirements

The twigc executable archive is bundled with Twig and all of its other dependencies; the only thing you need to run it is PHP version 7.0 or higher.

Limitations, todos, requests

Earlier versions of this tool were implemented in the manner of a Symfony Console application. I like Symfony components a lot, but the way Console handles arguments in particular leaves a great deal to be desired if you're trying to create something that works like a traditional UNIX CLI tool — the API is confused, the functionality is limited, and worst of all it's buggy. I ended up switching out the Console application/command/input components for a lazier and uglier, but ultimately better-behaved, design incorporating the GetOpt.php library.

If you have any ideas as to how to improve on this situation, please let me know.

I'd also like to achieve the following goals at some point:

• Add to Packagist
• Improve unit/integration tests
• Create man page
• Create zsh completion function

In the longer term, if i get really bored, maybe i'll add more input and escape methods. One thing that occurred to me is a custom escape option that takes an arbitrary escape character and a mask of characters to be escaped with it. For example, -e 'custom:%:%' might escape printf(3) format strings. idk

Anyway, if you find a bug or have a request, please let me know.

Licence and acknowledgements

twigc itself is available under the MIT licence. For information about the licences of its dependencies, run twigc --credits.

The \Dana\Twigc\PharCompiler class used to build the executable archive is based on \Composer\Compiler.

See also

• twigphp/Twig — The Twig project on GitHub.

• farazdagi/twig-cli — Another project that aims to bring Twig to the command line. It's actually quite similar in design (though no code is shared); it just didn't have the features i wanted and isn't actively developed.

• twigjs/twig.js — A pure JavaScript implementation of Twig. It comes with its own command-line tool, twigjs, which can be used to render Twig templates, but it's quite limited.

• indigojs/twig-cli — Another command-line Twig renderer based on Twig.js. Its functionality is very similar to (almost exactly the same as?) twigjs.

• mattrobenolt/jinja2-cli — A command-line Jinja2 renderer. Very comparable to twigc in terms of features.