Re: FreeMarker convert non-scalar to scalar

It appears to be possible using a Macro:

<#macro to_s object>
<@compress single_line=true>
    <#if object?is_hash || object?is_hash_ex>
        <#assign first="true">
        {
        <#list object?keys as key>
            <#if first="false">,</#if>
            <#assign value><@to_s object=object[key] /></#assign>
            "${key}" : ${value?trim}
            <#assign first="false">
        </#list>
        }
    <#elseif object?is_enumerable>
        <#assign first="true">
        [
        <#list object as item>
            <#if first="false">,</#if>
            <#assign value><@to_s object=item /></#assign>
            ${value?trim}
            <#assign first="false">
        </#list>
        ]
    <#else>
        "${object?trim}"
    </#if>
</@compress>
</#macro>

However, this solution is verbose to call and not very elegant, is
there a better way?

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 3:36 PM, Erin Drummond <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have frequently found the need to convert Hash and Sequence objects
> to Scalars in my FreeMarker templates (for debugging purposes mainly,
> so I can see what data is being made available in the template). The
> scalar representation would be identical to how you define them, for
> example a Hash would convert to "{ "key" : "value" }" and a Sequence
> would convert to "[ "item1", "item2" ]". However, I have not been able
> to find such functionality in FreeMarker. I tried to create a custom
> Method to do it, but it just errors out saying that it expects a
> Scalar as a parameter only.
>
> How would I go about achieving this in FreeMarker? Would I have to try
> and create a "to_s" builtin (if so, where do I start?), or is there a
> way to create methods that can accept non-scalar arguments?
>
> Thanks,
> Erin
>

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