openwrt-luci/docs/Templates.md

## Templates

See [online wiki](https://github.com/openwrt/luci/wiki/Templates) for latest version.

LuCI has a simple regex based template processor which parses HTML-files to Lua functions and allows to store precompiled template files.
The simplest form of a template is just an ordinary HTML-file. It will be printed out to the user as is.

In LuCI every template is an object with an own scope
It can therefore be instanced and each instance can have a different scope.
As every template processor. LuCI supports several special markups. Those are enclosed in `<% %>`-Tags.

By adding `-` (dash) right after the opening `<%` every whitespace before the markup will be stripped.
Adding a `-` right before the closing `%>` will equivalently strip every whitespace behind the markup.


## Builtin functions and markups
### Including Lua code
*Markup:*
```
<% code %>
```

### Writing variables and function values
*Syntax:*
```
<% write (value) %>
```

*Short-Markup:*
```
<%=value%>
```

### Including templates
*Syntax:*
```
<% include (templatename) %>
```

*Short-Markup:*
```
<%+templatename%>
```


### Translating
*Syntax:*
```
<%= translate("Text to translate") %>
```

*Short-Markup:*
```
<%:Text to translate%>
```


### Commenting
*Markup:*
```
<%# comment %>
```

## Builtin constants
* `REQUEST_URI`: The current URL (without server part)
* `controller`: Path to the Luci main dispatcher
* `resource`: Path to the resource directory
* `media`: Path to the active theme directory