Template substitution in Emacs?

Template substitution in Emacs?

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi there,

assume that I want to insert an (almost) constant string in Emacs
buffer.  For instance, it may be a string of the form

"I am a {my-variable}."

However, I want the "{my-variable}" part to be, well, variable: I want
to substitute the current value of `my-variable' for this.  So that

(setq my-variable "sentence")
(insert (template-substitute "I am a {my-variable}."))

would insert "I am a sentence." at point.

Of course, I could just use (format "I am a %s." my-variable), or even
define a function to do this.  The drawback would be that if the
"template" is a user-customizable thing, then the user would have to
supply %s's and not meaningful names.  What's more, the /order/ of the
substituted strings would be hardcoded in the "template".

Obviously, I could come up with such a function within 10-15 minutes or
so.  But why reinvent the wheel?  Is there anything like this in Emacs?

TIA,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Template substitution in Emacs?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> Hi there,
>
> assume that I want to insert an (almost) constant string in Emacs
> buffer.  For instance, it may be a string of the form
>
> "I am a {my-variable}."
>
> However, I want the "{my-variable}" part to be, well, variable: I want
> to substitute the current value of `my-variable' for this.  So that
>
> (setq my-variable "sentence")
> (insert (template-substitute "I am a {my-variable}."))
>
> would insert "I am a sentence." at point.
>
> Of course, I could just use (format "I am a %s." my-variable), or even
> define a function to do this.  The drawback would be that if the
> "template" is a user-customizable thing, then the user would have to
> supply %s's and not meaningful names.  What's more, the /order/ of the
> substituted strings would be hardcoded in the "template".
>
> Obviously, I could come up with such a function within 10-15 minutes or
> so.  But why reinvent the wheel?  Is there anything like this in Emacs?

There's a package called "dollaro" on melpa that looks like it does
this, though I haven't used it...

Re: Template substitution in Emacs?

[Paul W. Rankin]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> Hi there,
>
> assume that I want to insert an (almost) constant string in Emacs
> buffer.  For instance, it may be a string of the form
>
> "I am a {my-variable}."
>
> However, I want the "{my-variable}" part to be, well, variable: I want
> to substitute the current value of `my-variable' for this.  So that
>
> (setq my-variable "sentence")
> (insert (template-substitute "I am a {my-variable}."))
>
> would insert "I am a sentence." at point.
>
> Of course, I could just use (format "I am a %s." my-variable), or even
> define a function to do this.  The drawback would be that if the
> "template" is a user-customizable thing, then the user would have to
> supply %s's and not meaningful names.  What's more, the /order/ of the
> substituted strings would be hardcoded in the "template".
>
> Obviously, I could come up with such a function within 10-15 minutes or
> so.  But why reinvent the wheel?  Is there anything like this in Emacs?
>
> TIA,

`s-format' in the `s' package kind of does this. See discussion here:
https://github.com/magnars/s.el/issues/57

Basically...
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(let ((template "I am a ${my-variable}")
      (my-variable "sentence"))
  (s-format template
            '(lambda (var)
               (symbol-value (intern var)))))
=>
"I am a sentence"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

-- 
Paul W. Rankin
http://www.paulwrankin.com

Re: Template substitution in Emacs?

[Pierre Lorenzon]

Hi,

I think srecode is exactly what you need. First look at the
info documentation and if you think that it is not enough just
have a look at the cedet project and mailing list. srecode is
part of cedet.

Regards
Pierre



From: Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>
Subject: Template substitution in Emacs?
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 00:15:18 +0100

> Hi there,
> 
> assume that I want to insert an (almost) constant string in Emacs
> buffer.  For instance, it may be a string of the form
> 
> "I am a {my-variable}."
> 
> However, I want the "{my-variable}" part to be, well, variable: I want
> to substitute the current value of `my-variable' for this.  So that
> 
> (setq my-variable "sentence")
> (insert (template-substitute "I am a {my-variable}."))
> 
> would insert "I am a sentence." at point.
> 
> Of course, I could just use (format "I am a %s." my-variable), or even
> define a function to do this.  The drawback would be that if the
> "template" is a user-customizable thing, then the user would have to
> supply %s's and not meaningful names.  What's more, the /order/ of the
> substituted strings would be hardcoded in the "template".
> 
> Obviously, I could come up with such a function within 10-15 minutes or
> so.  But why reinvent the wheel?  Is there anything like this in Emacs?
> 
> TIA,
> 
> -- 
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
> Adam Mickiewicz University
> 

Re: Template substitution in Emacs?

[Robert Thorpe]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
> Hi there,
>
> assume that I want to insert an (almost) constant string in Emacs
> buffer.  For instance, it may be a string of the form
>
> "I am a {my-variable}."
>
> However, I want the "{my-variable}" part to be, well, variable: I want
> to substitute the current value of `my-variable' for this.  So that
>
> (setq my-variable "sentence")
> (insert (template-substitute "I am a {my-variable}."))
>
> would insert "I am a sentence." at point.

As well as the things others have mentioned there's skeleton.el which is
part of Emacs.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: Template substitution in Emacs?

[Pierre Lorenzon]

From: Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com>
Subject: Re: Template substitution in Emacs?
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 03:31:30 +0000

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
>> Hi there,
>>
>> assume that I want to insert an (almost) constant string in Emacs
>> buffer.  For instance, it may be a string of the form
>>
>> "I am a {my-variable}."
>>
>> However, I want the "{my-variable}" part to be, well, variable: I want
>> to substitute the current value of `my-variable' for this.  So that
>>
>> (setq my-variable "sentence")
>> (insert (template-substitute "I am a {my-variable}."))
>>
>> would insert "I am a sentence." at point.
> 
> As well as the things others have mentioned there's skeleton.el which is

  If it is enough it might be good. Notice that srecode is now
  part of gnu emacs. In particular srecode was intended to
  extend skeleton. So if skeleton is enough stay with that but
  if you want more try srecode.


  Pierre



> part of Emacs.
> 
> BR,
> Robert Thorpe
>