From: Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxx@xxxxxx.net>
To: mjd@plover.com
Subject: Text::Template
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 01:59:30 +0100

- templates with size zero generate an error. It's easy for me to check but I 
believe it should be allowed. There is nothing wrong with an empty template.

Cheers, Xxxxx.

To: Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxx@xxxxxx.net>

================================================================

Subject: Re: Text::Template 
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 20:48:41 -0500
From: Mark Jason Dominus <mjd@plover.com>

> - templates with size zero generate an error. 
> It's easy for me to check but I 
> believe it should be allowed. There is nothing wrong with an empty template.

I agree, but was unable to reproduce the problem.  Please send me a test
program that demonstrates the error.

================================================================

From: Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxx@xxxxxx.net>
To: Mark Jason Dominus <mjd@plover.com>
Subject: Re: Text::Template
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:25:16 +0100

I attach an example. create a directory named test_template and
"touch" a file named 'tes' in it.

[xxxxx@xxxxx perl_modules]$ ls -ls test_template/
total 0
0 -rw-r--r-- 1 xxxxx users 0 Nov 20 22:14 test

[xxxxx@xxxxx perl_modules]$ perl  test_text_template.pl
Error: Can't evaluate template!.

Returning undef from 'fill_in' when the file has zero size is not really an 
error but returning an empty string would be nicer IMO.

use Text::Template ;
my $template = Text::Template->new
				(
				  TYPE => 'FILE'
				, SOURCE => 'test_template/test'
				, DELIMITERS => ['{{', '}}']
				);
				
my $text = $template->fill_in(HASH => { A => 1}) or die "Error: Can't evaluate template!.\n" ;

================================================================

To: Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxx@xxxxxx.net>
Subject: Re: Text::Template 
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:20:20 -0500
From: Mark Jason Dominus <mjd@plover.com>


> Returning undef from 'fill_in' when the file has zero size is not really an 
> error but returning an empty string would be nicer IMO.

It does not return undef; it does return the empty string.  Your
program does not demonstrate any failure; it demonstrates the function
successfully returning the empty string, as it should.

Try this:

        use Text::Template ;
        my $template = Text::Template->new
                                        (
                                          TYPE => 'FILE'
                                        , SOURCE => 'test_template/test'
                                        , DELIMITERS => ['{{', '}}']
                                        ) or die;

        my $result = $template->fill_in(HASH => { A => 1});
        if (defined $result) {
          print "Success: result is <<$result>>\n";
        } else {
          die  "Error: Can't evaluate template ($Text::Template::ERROR)" ;
        }


When I run this, I get 

        Success: result is <<>>

which I beleve is exactly what it should be doing.