Slim

Slim is a template language whose goal is to reduce the view syntax to the essential parts without becoming cryptic.

What?

Slim is a fast, lightweight templating engine for Rails 3. It has been tested on Ruby 1.9.2 and Ruby/REE 1.8.7. Slim is heavily influenced by Haml and Jade.

Why?

Within the Rails community, Erb and Haml are without doubt the two most popular templating engines. However, Erb's syntax is cumbersome and Haml's performance isn't exactly the best. Slim was born to bring the minimalist syntax approach of Haml and the higher performance of Erb into once solution.

Yes, Slim is speedy! Benchmarks are provided at the end of this README file. Alternatively, a benchmark script is provided so you could test it yourself (./benchmarks/run.rb).

How?

Install Slim as a gem:

gem install slim

Include Slim in your Gemfile:

gem 'slim'

In config/application.rb, add the following line near the top (i.e. just below require 'rails/all'):

require 'slim/rails'

That's it!

The syntax

As a Rails developer, you might already be very familiar with Haml's syntax and you think it is fantastic - until you entered the magic kingdom of node.js and got introduced to Jade.

Slim's syntax is inspired by both Haml and Jade.

Here's a quick example to demonstrate what a Slim template looks like:

! doctype html
html
  head
    title Slim Examples
    meta name="keywords" content="template language"

  body
    h1 Markup examples
    #content.example1
      p Nest by indentation

    = yield

    - unless items.empty?
      table
        - for item in items do
          tr
            td = item.name
            td = item.price
    - else
      p No items found

    #footer
      | Copyright &copy; 2010 Andrew Stone

    = render partial: 'tracking_code'

    script
      | $(content).do_something();

Language features

Line indicators

Please note that all line indicators must be followed by a space

|
- The pipe tells Slim to just copy the line. It essentially escapes any processing.
`
- Same as the pipe ('|').
- The dash denotes control code (similar to Haml). Examples of control code are loops and conditionals.
=
- The equal sign tells Slim it's a Ruby call that produces output to add to the buffer (similar to Erb and Haml).
==
- Same as the single equal sign, but does not go through the escape_html method.
!
- This is a directive. Most common example: ! doctype html # renders <!doctype html>
/
- Use the forward slash for ruby code comments - anything after it won't get displayed in the final render.

Things to know

Standard Ruby syntax after '-' and '='
- end is not required
Can put content on same line or nest it.
- If you nest content (e.g. put it on the next line), start the line with a pipe ('|') or a backtick ('`').
Indentation matters, but it's not as strict as Haml.
- If you want to first indent 2 spaces, then 5 spaces, it's your choice. To nest markup you only need to indent by one space, the rest is gravy.

Wrap attributes with delimiters

# If a delimiter makes the syntax more readable for you,
# you can use any non-word and non-space characters except:
# equal sign (=), hash (#) and dot (.)

body
  h1(id="logo") = page_logo
  h2[id="tagline" class="small tagline"] = page_tagline

Add content to a tag

# Either start on the same line as the tag

body
  h1 id="headline" Welcome to my site.

# Or nest it.  __Note:__ Must use a pipe or a backtick (followed by a space) to escape processing

body
  h1 id="headline"
    | Welcome to my site.

Add content to a tag with code

# Can make the call on the same line

body
  h1 id="headline" = page_headline

# Or nest it.

body
  h1 id="headline"
    = page_headline

Shortcut form for `id` and `class` attributes

# Similarly to Haml, you can specify the `id` and `class`
# attributes in the following shortcut form
# Note: the shortcut form does not evaluate ruby code

body
  h1#headline
    = page_headline
  h2#tagline.small.tagline
    = page_tagline
  .content
    = show_content

# this is the same as

body
  h1 id="headline"
    = page_headline
  h2 id="tagline" class="small tagline"
    = page_tagline
  div class="content"
    = show_content

Set an attribute's value with a method

# Use standard Ruby interpolation.

body
  table
    - for user in users do
      tr id="user_#{user.id}"

Call a method in content

# Use standard Ruby interpolation.

body
  h1 Welcome #{current_user.name} to the show.

# To escape the interpolation (i.e. render as is)

body
  h1 Welcome \#{current_user.name} to the show.

Skip the escaping

# Use a double equal sign

body
  h1 id="headline"
    == page_headline

Treat multiple lines of code as text that should bypass parsing

# Use a pipe ('|') or backtick ('`') to start the escape.  
# Each following line that is indented greater than 
# the backtick is copied over.

body
  p
    |
      This is a test of the text block.

# The parsed result of the above:

<body><p>This is a test of the text block.</p></body>

# The left margin is set at the indent of the backtick + one space.
# Any additional spaces will be copied over.

body
  p
    |
      This line is on the left margin.
       This line will have one space in front of it.
         This line will have two spaces in front of it.
           And so on...

Add code comments

# Use a forward slash for ruby code comments

body
  p
    / This line won't get displayed.
    / Neither does this line.

# The parsed result of the above:

<body><p></p></body>

Benchmarks

# Ubuntu 10.04 + Ruby 1.9.2

                           user     system      total        real
erb                    0.560000   0.010000   0.570000 (  0.574373)
erubis                 0.480000   0.000000   0.480000 (  0.501512)
fast erubis            0.470000   0.000000   0.470000 (  0.481918)
slim                   0.610000   0.000000   0.610000 (  0.612794)
haml                   3.930000   0.010000   3.940000 (  3.939419)
haml ugly              3.790000   0.010000   3.800000 (  3.798528)
erb (cached)           0.190000   0.000000   0.190000 (  0.188593)
erubis (cached)        0.160000   0.000000   0.160000 (  0.159869)
fast erubis (cached)   0.140000   0.000000   0.140000 (  0.135476)
slim (cached)          0.150000   0.000000   0.150000 (  0.153698)
haml (cached)          0.430000   0.000000   0.430000 (  0.436980)
haml ugly (cached)     0.370000   0.000000   0.370000 (  0.372770)

# OS X 10.6 + Ruby 1.9.2

                           user     system      total        real
erb                    0.390000   0.000000   0.390000 (  0.399811)
erubis                 0.330000   0.010000   0.340000 (  0.331172)
fast erubis            0.330000   0.000000   0.330000 (  0.332800)
slim                   0.400000   0.010000   0.410000 (  0.399947)
haml                   2.650000   0.020000   2.670000 (  2.684864)
haml ugly              2.550000   0.020000   2.570000 (  2.592307)
erb (cached)           0.150000   0.000000   0.150000 (  0.158407)
erubis (cached)        0.140000   0.000000   0.140000 (  0.163568)
fast erubis (cached)   0.110000   0.000000   0.110000 (  0.143785)
slim (cached)          0.130000   0.010000   0.140000 (  0.147570)
haml (cached)          0.310000   0.000000   0.310000 (  0.338857)
haml ugly (cached)     0.270000   0.000000   0.270000 (  0.286244)

# OS X 10.6 + REE 1.8.7

                           user     system      total        real
erb                    0.470000   0.000000   0.470000 (  0.474660)
erubis                 0.330000   0.000000   0.330000 (  0.339252)
fast erubis            0.330000   0.000000   0.330000 (  0.339410)
slim                   0.510000   0.000000   0.510000 (  0.521215)
haml                   3.090000   0.030000   3.120000 (  3.167278)
haml ugly              2.950000   0.020000   2.970000 (  2.989357)
erb (cached)           0.080000   0.000000   0.080000 (  0.077019)
erubis (cached)        0.070000   0.000000   0.070000 (  0.069950)
fast erubis (cached)   0.070000   0.000000   0.070000 (  0.061986)
slim (cached)          0.060000   0.000000   0.060000 (  0.063628)
haml (cached)          0.260000   0.010000   0.270000 (  0.271184)
haml ugly (cached)     0.230000   0.000000   0.230000 (  0.238252)

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