Parsing issue when having template files including interpolated strings

[etorreborre]

Please try to g8 etorreborre/etorreborre/specs2-scala-2.10.g8.

You should have an error like:

action parse error; template context is [anonymous]
line 1:1: unexpected token: e1
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.language.ActionParser.primaryExpr(ActionParser.java:813)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.language.ActionParser.expr(ActionParser.java:539)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.language.ActionParser.templatesExpr(ActionParser.java:222)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.language.ActionParser.action(ActionParser.java:126)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.StringTemplate.parseAction(StringTemplate.java:876)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.language.TemplateParser.action(TemplateParser.java:162)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.language.TemplateParser.template(TemplateParser.java:127)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.StringTemplate.breakTemplateIntoChunks(StringTemplate.java:850)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.StringTemplate.setTemplate(StringTemplate.java:441)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.StringTemplate.<init>(StringTemplate.java:308)
    at org.antlr.stringtemplate.StringTemplate.<init>(StringTemplate.java:293)
    at org.clapper.scalasti.adapter.ScalastiStringTemplate.<init>(ScalastiStringTemplate.java:57)
    at org.clapper.scalasti.StringTemplate.<init>(StringTemplate.scala:101)
...

[sebnozzi]

I'm having the same issue with a file that includes a regular expression involving a "$".

I thought the $ could be escaped. Tried $ and $$ without success.

[sebnozzi]

My lousy workaround, until this is fixed, was to include this in the code:

  // This is to work around a parsing issue in giter8 - replace inlined dollar signs
  val DOLLAR = (0x24).toChar

And then:

  When("""^I retrieve the result""" + DOLLAR) { () =>

[sebnozzi]

It also fails for an HTML file containing...

$(function() {

Even if written as:

\$(function() {

Fortunately this time it was also possible to find a workaround:

jQuery(function() {

though I would prefer the "$" form.

[etorreborre]

I have another workaround. In the default.properties file define dollar=$. Then in your templates use When("""^I retrieve the result""" + $dollar$).

[agemooij]

Did you test that? I just get an unexpected char: '$' error while it is parsing the default.properties file and asking questions.

[etorreborre]

That was definitely working for me but I haven't tried recently.

[argast]

You can use $"$"$ combination to work around this problem.

e.g. in Scala:
s"$var" -> s"$"$"$var"

[vladap]

It gets quite ugly with javascript templates for AngularJs. As well as with Maven properties, checkstyle and scalastyle xmls.

Parser should forward look for a complete $var$ pattern where var can't have spaces, line breaks and any char which doesn't make sense in var name.

Without a fix it looks like dollar was an unfortunate choice for escaping, instead of {{ }}, <% %>, whatever. Few places for placeholders but potentially many for dollars in different contexts.

[vladap]

As well I would change title because it is more general problem than just with interpolated strings.

[foxmk]

I can change the behaviour of templating engine to fix this issue, but there
are several possible solutions:

• Escape $: \$ or $$. But this would not allow to develop template independently, which I would like to achieve.
• Restrict variable names to [a-zA-Z_-], which can break some existing templates and, in some cases won't work (If template contains println(s"$name_$foo"), for example).
• Look for existing properties and ignore unknown variables. But we should at least notify user about them.

Personally I would prefer the second solution with optional escaping.

[eed3si9n]

With Pamflet I've always used \$ to escape. I wonder if that's something specific to Pamflet, or if there's been some change to StringTemplate.

[eed3si9n]

\$ works for me.
Maybe this is why I tagged this issue with Documentation.

[foxmk]

The problem with escaping is that for example, I want to develop template separately.

I create my-template.g8/src/main/g8/src/main/$package$/Main.scala and I want
to create IDEA project inside my-template.g8/src/main/g8 to be able to edit and compile it.

But if I want to write:

package $package$

object Main extends App {
  val foo = "foo"
  val bar = "bar"
  println(s"\$foo\$bar") // I need to escape this
}

inner project won't work properly. Same thing with .gitignore the .idea folder.

[eed3si9n]

@foxmk I think that's a whole different issue from what's being reported here. Eric reported "action parse error; template context is [anonymous]".

[djmittens]

Hi, i was recently also trying to use giter8 to create a template which has amongst other things, sh files which would provide example commands to start docker containers with the right parameters, and therefore have a lot of env vars defined with $VAR which break giter8, this is a pretty big issue for me, so getting a work around or something like that would be of huge help.

[Tvaroh]

$"$"$ doesn't work anymore, other solutions above neither. It's pity to see such a child problems in a project like this.

[kknd22]

I think #3 is the right solution:

Look for existing properties and ignore unknown variables. But we should at least notify user about them.

It make no sense to pollute the whole source code with all kinds of escape while the ONLY replacements are limited to a very small set...

This assumes that the file default.properties is mandatory and it contains ALL replaceable names and their default values.

[laughedelic]

Escaping with \$ works for me with sbt 0.13.15 which should be using Giter8 0.7.2

[metasim]

FWIW: I'm having this problem with sbt 0.13.16 sbt-giter8 0.9.0; can't figure out how to escape '$'

[djmittens]

It seems like there was an identified correct solution (eg. if there is no token specified in build.properties, then dont try to find the closing dollar) is it a difficult change? and if so where would one look to make it?

[ryan-williams]

FWIW, I believe I'm seeing both \$ and $"$"$ working atm, SBT 1.1.0 and Giter8 0.11.0-M2

[salim7]

It would be great to have a more intelligent behavior, like auto-escaping for undefined vars or when a closing $ sign is missing.

[TonioGela]

Hi, i was recently also trying to use giter8 to create a template which has amongst other things, sh files which would provide example commands to start docker containers with the right parameters, and therefore have a lot of env vars defined with $VAR which break giter8, this is a pretty big issue for me, so getting a work around or something like that would be of huge help.

I think that the verbatim could solve here.

Since issue title is Parsing issue when having template files including interpolated strings and, like in the above example, escaping dollars like \$ works perfectly with the current version 0.13.1 (see screenshots), I think the only thing left is adding this detail to the documentation. I'll write a PR asap.