A tool to analyze your templates

[Simon Gubler]

Hi all

I have written a small tool that scanns velocity-files and extracts all
called variables. It's a command-line tool, you can execute it like this:

java -jar TemplateAnalyzer.jar folder1 folder2
In folder1 are your velocity files to analyze, in folder2 the tool will
generate velocity-files with the same name as in folder1 but only with the
accessed variables as content.

I made it an sourceforge project so you can view the code. You can find the
project here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/vmanalyzer. I don't know if
anything like this already exists, I didn't find anything under sourceforge.

There are some things I would like to add in the future, like for example
recursively scanning the velocity-files, but for now I hope it can be of use
to you.

Simon Gubler

[Ahmed Mohombe]

> I have written a small tool that scanns velocity-files and extracts all
> called variables.
Very nice, thank you.

> It's a command-line tool, you can execute it like this:
>
> java -jar TemplateAnalyzer.jar folder1 folder2
> In folder1 are your velocity files to analyze, in folder2 the tool will
> generate velocity-files with the same name as in folder1 but only with the
> accessed variables as content.
Would you consider adding a simple and *documented* API about how to use
it directly from code? (E.g. to get a List with all variables from a specific template?)

This would be very usable for "user written templates" like CMSes to check if the
user in it's code is accessing only allowed variables :) (and e.g. only than to allow upload/save on
the server).

Thanks in advance,

Ahmed.


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[Simon Gubler]

Hi Ahmed

Thank you for your reply. I think this could be possible but I will have to
work on it because now it doesn't recognize when a foreach-Block ends.
I think it has to know this because if you have for example #foreach($day in
${days}) you don't want to include the variable ${day} in the list but
rather ${days}.
Do you agree with me?

Greetings

Simon
On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Ahmed Mohombe <amohombe@...> wrote:

> I have written a small tool that scanns velocity-files and extracts all
> > called variables.
> >
> Very nice, thank you.
>
>  It's a command-line tool, you can execute it like this:
> >
> > java -jar TemplateAnalyzer.jar folder1 folder2
> > In folder1 are your velocity files to analyze, in folder2 the tool will
> > generate velocity-files with the same name as in folder1 but only with
> > the
> > accessed variables as content.
> >
> Would you consider adding a simple and *documented* API about how to use
> it directly from code? (E.g. to get a List with all variables from a
> specific template?)
>
> This would be very usable for "user written templates" like CMSes to check
> if the
> user in it's code is accessing only allowed variables :) (and e.g. only
> than to allow upload/save on the server).
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Ahmed.
>
>
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>
>

[Ahmed Mohombe]

> I think it has to know this because if you have for example #foreach($day in
> ${days}) you don't want to include the variable ${day} in the list but
> rather ${days}.
> Do you agree with me?
Of course.
I just thought that the Velocity AST is able to distinct between "local variabls" like
$day and "global" ones.

Ahmed.


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[Simon Gubler]

Hi Ahmed

I have to say, that I don't use the velocity API, I basically scan the files
for #foreach, #end and ${.*} or $!{.*} Expressions and list them in the
outputfile. When I have time (probably next month) I will look into the
velocity API. If I can use it I won't have to implement the grammar myself.

Greetings

Simon

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ahmed Mohombe <amohombe@...> wrote:

> I think it has to know this because if you have for example #foreach($day
> > in
> > ${days}) you don't want to include the variable ${day} in the list but
> > rather ${days}.
> > Do you agree with me?
> >
> Of course.
> I just thought that the Velocity AST is able to distinct between "local
> variabls" like
> $day and "global" ones.
>
>
> Ahmed.
>
>
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[Nathan Bubna]

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Simon Gubler <sgubler@...> wrote:
> Hi Ahmed
>
>  I have to say, that I don't use the velocity API, I basically scan the files
>  for #foreach, #end and ${.*} or $!{.*} Expressions and list them in the
>  outputfile. When I have time (probably next month) I will look into the
>  velocity API. If I can use it I won't have to implement the grammar myself.

When you do that, referencing the following might help:
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/velocity/engine/trunk/experimental/templatetool/

it's an old experiment.  i've no idea if it still works, but it had a
similar goal.

>  Greetings
>
>  Simon
>
>
>
>  On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ahmed Mohombe <amohombe@...> wrote:
>
>  > I think it has to know this because if you have for example #foreach($day
>  > > in
>  > > ${days}) you don't want to include the variable ${day} in the list but
>  > > rather ${days}.
>  > > Do you agree with me?
>  > >
>  > Of course.
>  > I just thought that the Velocity AST is able to distinct between "local
>  > variabls" like
>  > $day and "global" ones.
>  >
>  >
>  > Ahmed.
>  >
>  >
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>  > To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@...
>  > For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@...
>  >
>  >
>

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[Simon Gubler]

Thank you, it works! Looks like the visitor pattern. I think I can use this
as a basis for the rework.

Greetings

Simon

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 10:14 PM, Nathan Bubna <nbubna@...> wrote:

> On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Simon Gubler <sgubler@...> wrote:
> > Hi Ahmed
> >
> >  I have to say, that I don't use the velocity API, I basically scan the
> files
> >  for #foreach, #end and ${.*} or $!{.*} Expressions and list them in the
> >  outputfile. When I have time (probably next month) I will look into the
> >  velocity API. If I can use it I won't have to implement the grammar
> myself.
>
> When you do that, referencing the following might help:
>
> http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/velocity/engine/trunk/experimental/templatetool/
>
> it's an old experiment.  i've no idea if it still works, but it had a
> similar goal.
>
> >  Greetings
> >
> >  Simon
> >
> >
> >
> >  On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ahmed Mohombe <amohombe@...>
> wrote:
> >
> >  > I think it has to know this because if you have for example
> #foreach($day
> >  > > in
> >  > > ${days}) you don't want to include the variable ${day} in the list
> but
> >  > > rather ${days}.
> >  > > Do you agree with me?
> >  > >
> >  > Of course.
> >  > I just thought that the Velocity AST is able to distinct between
> "local
> >  > variabls" like
> >  > $day and "global" ones.
> >  >
> >  >
> >  > Ahmed.
> >  >
> >  >
> >  > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >  > To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@...
> >  > For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@...
> >  >
> >  >
> >
>
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>

[Simon Gubler]

Nathan Bubna schrieb:

> On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Simon Gubler <sgubler@...> wrote:
>  
>> Hi Ahmed
>>
>>  I have to say, that I don't use the velocity API, I basically scan the files
>>  for #foreach, #end and ${.*} or $!{.*} Expressions and list them in the
>>  outputfile. When I have time (probably next month) I will look into the
>>  velocity API. If I can use it I won't have to implement the grammar myself.
>>    
>
> When you do that, referencing the following might help:
> http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/velocity/engine/trunk/experimental/templatetool/
>
> it's an old experiment.  i've no idea if it still works, but it had a
> similar goal.
>
>  
>>  Greetings
>>
>>  Simon
>>
>>
>>
>>  On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Ahmed Mohombe <amohombe@...> wrote:
>>
>>  > I think it has to know this because if you have for example #foreach($day
>>  > > in
>>  > > ${days}) you don't want to include the variable ${day} in the list but
>>  > > rather ${days}.
>>  > > Do you agree with me?
>>  > >
>>  > Of course.
>>  > I just thought that the Velocity AST is able to distinct between "local
>>  > variabls" like
>>  > $day and "global" ones.
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > Ahmed.
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  > To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@...
>>  > For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@...
>>  >
>>  >
>>
>>    
>
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>
>  

Hi everyone

As I said earlier, I've worked on the tool and rebuilt it. Now it works
with the velocity API that Nathan Bubna has given me. Instead of putting
all the refernces in a list I build a tree structure where the
references are leaves and the #foreach-loops are nodes.
TemplateAnalyzer_TreeGui.jar shows this structure in a Swing-GUI as a
JTree.
Execute it like this: java -jar TemplateAnalyzer_TreeGui.jar foo.vm
foo.vm is the name of the template.

You can download the new version 1.1 here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=226718.

I hope you can use it to get an overview of your templates.

Kind regards

Simon

PS: @Ahmed: To scan for the used references for the user written
templates I would recommend you to use the TemplateTool from Nathan
Bubna: Just get your template, call TemplateTool.referenceList() with
the template as parameter, and look at each entry in the returned list
if it contains a forbidden reference.