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.

📊 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.