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Rendering a template

Overview

In order to render a template, you need pass a context for the variables, objects, functions that will be accessed by the template.

In the following examples, we have a variable name that is used by the template:

var inputTemplateAsText = "This is a {{ name }} template";

// Parse the template
var template = Template.Parse(inputTemplateAsText);

// Renders the template with the variable `name` exposed to the template
var result = template.Render(new { name = "Hello World"});

// Prints the result: "This is a Hello World template"
Console.WriteLine(result);

As we can see, we are passing an anonymous objects that has this field/property name and by calling the Render method, the template is executed with this data model context.

While passing an anonymous object is nice for a hello world example, it is not always enough for more advanced data model scenarios.

In this case, you want to use more directly the TemplateContext (used by the method Template.Render(object)) and a ScriptObject which are both at the core of scriban rendering architecture to provide more powerful constructions & hooks of the data model exposed (variables but also functions...etc.).

The TemplateContext execution model

The TemplateContext provides:

• an execution context when evaluating a template. The same instance can be used with many different templates, depending on your requirements.
• A stack of ScriptObject that provides the actual variables/functions accessible to the template, accessible through Template.PushGlobal(scriptObj) and Template.PopGlobal(). Why a stack and how to use this stack is described in the variable stack page.
• The text output when evaluating a template, which is accessible through the Template.Output property as a StringBuilder but because you can have nested rendering happening, it is possible to use Template.PushOutput() and Template.PopOutput() to redirect temporarily the output to a new output. This functionality is typically used by the capture statement.
• Caching of templates previously loaded by an include directive (see include and ITemplateLoader section )
• Various possible overrides to allow fine grained extensibility (evaluation of an expression, conversion to a string, enter/exit/step into a loop...etc.)

Note that a TemplateContext is not thread safe, so it is recommended to have one TemplateContext per thread.