I am looking for a .net templating engine – something simple, lightweight, stable with not too many dependencies. All I need it for at the moment is creating templated plain text and html emails. Can anyone give me a good recommendation?
If it helps at all – something like Java’s Freemarker or Velocity libraries.
[UPDATE]
Thanks for the answers so far – much appreciated. I am really intested in recommendations or war stories from when you have used these libraries. Seems to be the best way to make a decision without trying each in turn.
Answers:
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Method 1
Here’s a couple more:
- NHaml
- Spark
- Brail (can be used standalone)
About NVelocity, it has been forked by the Castle guys, it’s being developed here
For emails, I’ve never needed more than NVelocity.
Method 2
RazorEngine, A templating engine built on Microsoft’s Razor parsing engine.
https://github.com/Antaris/RazorEngine
Haven’t used it, but I find it interesting because if you have an ASP.NET MVC background, you won’t need to learn something new.
Method 3
More Complete List
- ASP.Net inbuilt WebForm View Engine
- ASPView
- Brail
- NHaml (.Net port of Haml)
- Spark
- NVelocity
- StringTemplate.Net
Method 4
I would recommend CodeSmith Generator. It is a template based code generator, with constant updates and an active community. Here is a list of templates that ship with CodeSmith Generator.
Method 5
string template from the anltr.org folks with a C# version too.
Method 6
Some tests with Handlebars, RazorEngine and SharpTAL below :
namespace ConsoleApplication4
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
//RAZOR
string razorTemplate = @"@model ConsoleApplication4.Test
<h1>@Model.Title</h1>
@if(Model.Condition1)
{
<span>condition1 is true</span>
}
<div>
@foreach(var movie in Model.Movies)
{<span>@movie</span>}
</div>";
//burning
Engine.Razor.RunCompile(razorTemplate, "templateKey", typeof(Test), new Test());
sw.Start();
var result1 = Engine.Razor.RunCompile(razorTemplate, "templateKey", typeof(Test), new Test());
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("razor : "+sw.Elapsed);
//SHARPTAL
string sharpTalTemplate = @"<h1>${Title}</h1>
<span tal:condition=""Condition1"">condition1 is true</span>
<div tal:repeat='movie Movies'>${movie}</div>";
var test = new Test();
var globals = new Dictionary<string, object>
{
{ "Movies", new List<string> {test.Movies[0],test.Movies[1],test.Movies[2] } },
{ "Condition1", test.Condition1 },
{ "Title", test.Title },
};
var tt = new Template(sharpTalTemplate);
tt.Render(globals);
sw.Restart();
var tt2 = new Template(sharpTalTemplate);
var result2 = tt2.Render(globals);
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("sharptal : " + sw.Elapsed);
//HANDLEBARS
string handleBarsTemplate = @"<h1>{{Title}}</h1>
{{#if Condition1}}
<span>condition1 is true</span>
{{/if}}
<div>
{{#each Movies}}
<span>{{this}}</span>
{{/each}}
</div>";
var tt3 = Handlebars.Compile(handleBarsTemplate);
sw.Restart();
var result3 = tt3(new Test());
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("handlebars : " + sw.Elapsed);
Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------");
Console.WriteLine(result1);
Console.WriteLine(result2);
Console.WriteLine(result3);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
public class Test
{
public bool Condition1 { get; set; }
public List<string> Movies { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public Test()
{
Condition1 = true;
Movies = new List<string>() { "Rocky", "The Fifth Element", "Intouchables" };
Title = "Hi stackoverflow! Below you can find good movie list! Have a good day.";
}
}
}
and results :
Method 7
I’ve just released an open source project. It’s aimed principally at email templating but you could use the parser by itself if you wanted to. You can read some more details and grab the source code from my blog.
Method 8
I think Mustache (http://mustache.github.com/) may fit the bill too.
Method 9
DotLiquid is very nice templating system for .NET.
It’s derived from Ruby’s Liquid Markup, with requirements .NET Framework 3.5 or above.
Method 10
try this one: Email Template Framework http://www.bitethebullet.co.uk/Email_Template_Framework.aspx
It works great under ASP.NET and WinForms and is still under active development. There is also very nice documentation and easy to dig in examples.
Method 11
XCST (eXtensible C-Sharp Templates)
<ul>
<c:for-each name='n' in='System.Linq.Enumerable.Range(1, 5)' expand-text='yes'>
<li>{n}</li>
</c:for-each>
</ul>
Method 12
Have you seen NVelocity, a .NET port of Velocity?
http://nvelocity.sourceforge.net/
Method 13
http://csharp-source.net/open-source/template-engines
http://joel.net/code/dotnet_templates.aspx
Hope this helps!!!
Method 14
NVELOCITY, though it’s old ,last release in 2003, enough.
Method 15
SharpTAL – standalone engine in active development and without dependencies, fast
All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0