What generic template processor should I use?

Question

This is a potentially dangerous question because interdisciplinary questions and answers will be biased, but I'll have a stab at it anyway. All in good spirit!

So, here we go. I'm writing a major editing mode for Emacs for the language that it has almost no support for yet. And I'm at the point, where I have to decide on a way to generate project files. Below is the syllabus of the task ahead:

• The templates have to represent project directory tree, not only single files.

• The resulting files are of various formats, potentially including SGML-like languages, but not limited to this variety. They also have to generate C-like source code and, eLisp source code and plain text files, like README, for example.

• The templates must be processed in a batch upon user-initiated action (as in user wants to create a project - several files must be created in the user-appointed directory). It may be beneficial to have an ability to supervise the creation, but this is less important then the ability to run the process entirely automatically.

Bonus features:

• The template language has already a user base (with a potential of reuse of existing templates).

• The templates can be used for code snippets (contain blanks which are filled interactively once the user invokes code-generating routine while editing the file).

• Obvious things like cross-platform-ness, ease of use both through graphical interface and command line.

I made a research, but I won't share my results (yet) so I won't bias the answers. The problem with answering this question is not that the answer is hard to find, but that it is hard to chose one from many.

Answer 1

I'm developing a system based on Mustache for exactly the use case that you've described. The template language itself is a very simple extension of Mustache called Groome.

I also released a command-line tool called Molt that renders Groome templates. I'd be curious to know if it does everything that you need. I'm still adding features to the tool and haven't yet announced it. Thanks.