Given the file (or string) containing
@model M <h2>@Model.Name</h2> @foreach(var x in Model.Parts) { <div>@x</div> }. Besides that I need to produce a common HTML (e. g., <h2>A</h2> <div>a</div><div>b</div> for model { Name = "A", Parts = new[] { "a", "b", }, }), I would like also get some template proper for JavaScript compilation. For this example it may be a JavaScript function m(Model) { var result = "<h2>" + Model.Name + "</h2>"; for(var i = 0; i < Model.Parts.length; i++) { result += "<div>" + Model.Parts[i] + "</div>"; } return result; }. Or it may be an HTML filled with tokens of one of the JavaScript templating frameworks: <h2><% Model.Name %></h2> <% for(var i = 0; i < Model.Parts.length; i++) { %> <div> <% Model.Parts[i] %> </div> <% } %>.In the first case I will supply JSON model to the function and it will produce the same HTML as was produced after Razor template rendering. In the second case I would first compile the given template with appropriate JavaScript framework, obtain the similar JavaScript function and do the same thing.
So in general I would like to convert a template marked with one syntax (Razor) to a template marked with another syntax (e. g., http://underscorejs.org/#template ).
That said I probably would suggest a webservice instead, keeping the templates on the server (Razor) and calling that service via javascript instead of a client side templating solution.
I have never heard of somebody doing anything similar so you are probably completely on your own (no need to say that it sounds like a really difficult/impossible thing to do)
@matthid
any C# code
Since one follows the ViewModel template, usually anything except direct properties access and basic code control constructions (if-else, for, foreach, switch) are not expected. Thus the task is becoming easier.
calling that service via javascript instead of a client side templating solution
You are right, but I would like to minimize the load on the server and transfer some work to the client side. And simultaneously I would like to consider a situation when JS is blocked by the client.
never heard of somebody doing anything similar
I have found the project https://github.com/jchadwick/RazorClientTemplates, but it is abandoned by the main contributor and thus it is obsolete.
So, I intend to inherit from RazorEngine.Compilation.CompilerServiceBase and implement... yet do not know what. Would you be so kind to point me to the reference or say what should I do after implementation? I have expected some parser class where an instance of type ICompilerService must be supplied. Am I correct?
Ideally you want to intercept somewhere near: https://github.com/Antaris/RazorEngine/blob/master/src/source/RazorEngine.Core/Compilation/CompilerServiceBase.cs#L356
And the cleanest thing to do would be to create your own "RazorCodeLanguage" class, which outputs JS instead of C# (but that's probably more work than to simply walk over the C# tree) and change the property here: https://github.com/Antaris/RazorEngine/blob/master/src/source/RazorEngine.Core/Compilation/CompilerServiceBase.cs#L107.
You should start by compiling from source and marking the methods you want to overwrite as virtual (if needed) and implement what you are trying to achieve. I would certainly accept a pull request later on. You should figure out exactly what you want to do and what you expect after compiling a template. The C# code? the JS Code? both? And how to integrate that with the remaining architecture of RazorEngine (for the start it is probably enough to have a CompilerService that outputs JS and run it standalone whenever you need it)
I think there can come up some issues on a concurrent call to the service.
<Link>@(Model.LinkName)</Link> (see linked issue). That's just something to keep in mind. Once you trigger something special tag like this it is really hard to debug.
