Crate minilate 

Minilate

A templating engine prioritising minimal binary size and speed at the cost of feature set.

🚀 Quick Start

use minilate::{MinilateEngine, Context, VariableTy, MinilateInterface};

// Create engine and add template
let mut engine = MinilateEngine::new();
engine.add_template("hello", "Hello, {{ name }}!").unwrap();

// Create context
let mut context = Context::new();
context.insert("name", VariableTy::String.with_data("World".to_string()));

// Render
let result = engine.render("hello", Some(&context)).unwrap();
assert_eq!(result, "Hello, World!");

⚡ Performance

Minilate is designed for only a core feature set, but maximised performance and minimised binary size.

Engine	Binary Size	Rel. Size	Time/Template	Rel. Perf.
Minilate	1.56 MB	1.00x	205.08 µs	1.00x
Handlebars	1.75 MB	1.12x	776.79 µs	3.79x
MiniJinja	2.00 MB	1.28x	438.03 µs	2.154

📊 Minilate achieves 12-28% smaller binaries while being ~2-4x faster than alternatives.

Benchmarks: 100 complex templates × 50 iterations each. Template includes conditionals, loops, and nested data. See Benchmarking for details.

🚀 Features

• Simple replacements using {{ variable }}
• Conditional blocks with boolean logic using {{% if <condition> %}}, {{% else if %}}, and {{% else %}}
  • NOT: !
  • AND: &&
  • OR: ||
• For loops with {{% for var in iterable %}}
• Nested template injection using {{<< <template_file_name>.tmpl }}
• Escaping with \{{ or \{{%

🛠️ Installation

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
minilate = "0.1"

📖 Examples

Basic Variable Substitution

Welcome to {{ site_name }}!
Your username is {{ user.name }}.

Conditional Logic

{{% if user && is_active %}}
  Hello, {{ user }}! You have {{ message_count }} new messages.
{{% elif !is_active %}}
  Your account is inactive. Please contact support.
{{% else %}}
  Hello, Guest! Please log in to continue.
{{% endif %}}

Loops and Nested Data

# Shopping Cart
{{% if items %}}
Total items: {{ item_count }}

{{% for item in items %}}
- {{ item.name }} ({{ item.quantity }}x) - ${{ item.price }}
  {{% if item.special %}}**ON SALE!**{{% endif %}}
{{% endfor %}}

Total: ${{ total_price }}
{{% else %}}
Your cart is empty.
{{% endif %}}

Template Inclusion

{{<< header.tmpl }}

# Main Content
{{ content }}

{{<< footer.tmpl }}

Complex Example

# User Profile: {{ user.name }}

{{% if user.active %}}
**Status:** Active User (Age: {{ user.age }})

{{% if show_details && has_access %}}
## Recent Activity
{{% for activity in recent_activities %}}
- {{ activity.date }}: {{ activity.description }}
  {{% if activity.important %}}⚠️ **Important**{{% endif %}}
{{% endfor %}}
{{% elif !has_access %}}
*You don't have permission to view activity details*
{{% endif %}}
{{% else %}}
**Status:** Inactive User
{{% endif %}}

📊 Benchmarking

To run benchmarks locally:

./scripts/benchmark.sh

This script:

• Builds all benchmark binaries
• Runs performance tests against Minilate, Handlebars, and MiniJinja
• Analyzes binary sizes
• Compares results with previous runs
• Saves results for historical tracking

The benchmark tests template rendering with:

• 100 different contexts
• 50 iterations per engine
• Complex templates with conditionals, loops, and nested data

📄 License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Structs

Context

Holds the data (variables) available during template rendering.

MinilateEngine

MinilateEngine is the primary implementation of the MinilateInterface trait, providing a complete templating engine for the Minilate system

Template

A Template represents a parsed template that can be rendered with a context.

Variable

Enums

MinilateError

Represents errors that can occur during the operation of the Minilate template engine.

VariableTy

Specifies the type of a variable within a Context.

Traits

MinilateInterface

MinilateEngine is a trait for the Minilate templating engine, an opinionated and minamalistic templating engine designed for use in offline, static, single-threaded environments.