Page/view syntax

The page or view syntax is designed to mix imperative and declarative programming.

Xbase++ code sections - the imperative part - start with <% tag and end with %> tag. In addition, arbitrary expressions can easily be embedded into the declarative part of your view using the @(<expression>) inline syntax.

There also is a single-line syntax which marks a line in your view as code. Just use the @ marker as the first character of a line to mark it as a line of code.

The code below shows the previously outlined syntactical elements. The picture further down shows the result produced when requesting the CXP view from within your browser.

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html> 
<body style="background-color:CornflowerBlue ;color:MintCream"> 
<!-- just HTML markup --> 
<h1>Hello World</h1> 

<!-- inline syntax inside HTML markup--> 
<p>Today is @(Date())!</p> 

<!-- using single-line syntax and inline sytnax instead of a code section --> 
<h1>Again ASCII codes from 39-44</h2> 
<p> 
@FOR n:=39 TO 44 
<!-- since this is markup we need to use HTML comments --> 
CodePoint:@(StrZero(n,2)) <b>IS:</b> @(Chr(n))<br> 
@NEXT n 
</p> 

<h1>ASCII codes from 33-38</h2> 
<!-- code section start/end tag. output rendering via ? --> 
<p> 
<% 
FOR n:=33 TO 38 
 // Normal Xbase++ syntax must be used for code and 
 // comments in the code sections 
 ? "CodePoint:",StrZero(n,2)," <b>IS:</b>",Chr(n),"</br>" 
NEXT n 
%> 
</p> 

</body> 
</html>

The general idea behind the different syntaxes is to increase readability of your code and markup. The following are considered best-practice rules for coding in CXP:

Use the <% %> tags only for pure Xbase++ code. Do not output HTML inside Xbase++ code sections using ?/??.

Use the @() inline expression syntax in your views to output data, and for binding models to views.

Use the @ single-line marker only for defining the start and end of iterators such as FOR/WHILE, and for conditional sections in your markup enclosed in IF/ELSE/ENDIF

Try to avoid writing business logic mixed with markup. Use code locality tagsinstead for isolating your logic code from view markup.

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Page/view syntax Foundation