ECR render at runtime

[faustinoaq]

Hi i'm using Kemal and I have to recompile files each time html change in ecr files.

Would be posible that ECR return a string with html changes rendered without recompile?

Actually ECR do this:

# greeting.ecr
# Greeting, <%= name %>!

require "ecr/macros"

name = "World"

io = IO::Memory.new
ECR.embed "greeting.ecr", io
io.to_s # => "Hello World!"

# Output:
# io << "Hello "
# io << name
# io << "!"

Would be possible do something like this:

# greeting.ecr
# Greeting, <%= name %>!

require "ecr/render"

name = "World"
puts ECR.render "greeting.ecr", name

# Output
# Greeting, World!

An useful use-case would be render in Kemal (see: kemalcr/kemal/issues/335)

[bew]

To follow your idea, I think ECR.render should render at runtime, and ECR.render! should render at compile time

[ysbaddaden]

You want a safe templating language, one where the logic is interpreted at runtime, thus reloadable, since you can reload, reparse and reinterpret (at least in non release mode).

But ECR allows any Crystal code, which must be compiled, and it can't reload templates at runtime.

[faustinoaq]

@ysbaddaden ok, Mustache(Crustache) and Liquid shards are templating languages like you said.
Maybe, could be good a shard for a template language based on ECR syntax 😅