But I like pure functions. This approach leaves me no easy way to stick the generated HTML into a variable.

There's that print again. I said I was breaking those laws :) 

our $print = sub { print shift };
sub table (&) { $print->("<table>\n"); shift->(); $print->("</table>\n
+"); }
sub row (&) { $print->("<tr>"); shift->(); $print->("</tr>\n"); }
sub cell { $print->("<td>$_</td>") for @_; }

table { row { cell "foo" } };

my $html = "<html><body>";

local $print = sub { $html .= shift };

table { row { cell "foo" } };

$html .= "</body></html>";

[download]
But really, I did not intend to write re-usable or pure code. Just something that feels comfortable and is very easy to use. In practice, I rarely need HTML in a variable. I don't mind writing HTML manually for that one time per month :)

Alternatively, break the rules again and just open the scalar as if it were a file: 

sub table (&) { print-"<table>\n"; shift->(); print "</table>\n"; 
sub row (&) { print "<tr>"; shift->(); print "</tr>\n"; }
sub cell { print "<td>$_</td>" for @_; }

table { row { cell "foo" } };

my $html = "<html><body>";

open my $fh, '>>', \$html;
select $fh;

table { row { cell "foo" } };

close $fh;

$html .= "</body></html>";

[download]

I cannot see how to do nested tables at all, when the table function is written to print.

You shouldn't need nested tables. If you find yourself needing a table in another table, that is probably because one table is there just for the layout of the page. And such a table isn't created with something like this, because you need attributes badly.

I meant the code to be simple. To get there, I broke quite some unwritten rules about purity and reusability. It was not my intention to support anything more than printing simple tables.

Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

In reply to Re: Re: Readable HTML tables by Juerd
in thread Readable HTML tables by Juerd

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