Thanks for the softball.

Here is your job. I will give you an array of text strings. Without manipulating the data in the perl layer, please provide one template that shows them in a bullet list and another template that shows them in a table with three columns with data oriented in columns with one item per cell. On the column oriented version fill in   wherever there isn't a defined value. Be sure external whitespace is nice and consistent.

For extra credit - make the template decide conditionally that if you have less than n items use the bullet list - otherwise use the table.

For extra extra credit - do this exercise - but do it in a text-only based email that will be sent to a user (ie - no html tags). 

----- bullet.tt ---------
<ul>
[%- FOREACH i IN items %]
<li>[% i %]</li>
[%- END %]
</ul>

----- columns.tt --------
[%- cols = 3;
    rows = items.size div cols;
    rows = rows+1 IF items.size % cols %]
[%- FOR i IN [0 .. rows - 1] %]
<tr>
  [%- FOR j IN [0 .. cols -1] %]
  <td>[% items.${ i + rows * j } %]</td>
  [%- END %]
</tr>
[%- END %]
</table>

------ optional.tt
[% PROCESS ${ items.size > 10 ? "columns.tt" : "bullet.tt" } %]

------ my_perl.pl ------

use Template::Alloy;
my $t    = Template::Alloy->new;
my $data = {
    items => [1 .. 10],
};

$t->process("bullet.tt", $data) || die $t->error;
$t->process("columns.tt", $data) || die $t->error;
__END__
prints

<ul>
<li>1</li>
<li>2</li>
<li>3</li>
<li>4</li>
<li>5</li>
<li>6</li>
<li>7</li>
<li>8</li>
<li>9</li>
<li>10</li>
</ul>
<table>
<tr>
  <td>1</td>
  <td>5</td>
  <td>9</td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td>2</td>
  <td>6</td>
  <td>10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td>3</td>
  <td>7</td>
  <td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td>4</td>
  <td>8</td>
  <td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>

[download]


Update To me the code layer would be your perl modules and your cgi script (or your mod_perl application). The example given is simplified and contrived - but represents real life situations.
Update 2 s/specifying/manipulating the data/

my @a=qw(random brilliant braindead); print $a[rand(@a)];

In reply to Re: object-oriented composition of model-view with HTML::Seamstress by Rhandom
in thread RFC - Template::Empty by redhotpenguin

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