PTM Inline Perl/HTML Hybrid Parser Project

Version 0.5.1 Beta

				Home SVN Downloads Documentation Forum Contact

This Site is 100%
Powered by PTM

What is PTM?

In short, PTM is a
Perl/HTML hybrid.
An inline develop-
ment language for
those that need a
bit more power
behind the
scenes.

But more than that,
it allows develop-
ers to harness
Perl's ability to
manipulate strings
of text and iterate
loops many times
faster than other
languages on the
market without
the need to sacri-
fice development
time to complex
print, split, and join
statements.

Additionally, PTM
wraps many vari-
ables common to
PHP to ease the
transition between
PTM and PHP when
switching back and
forth.

PTM was not
created to replace
PHP or ASP. It was
designed to be a
complement to
them. Where one
fails another picks
up the slack. In the
world of dynamic
design we need all
the tools in our
toolbox to get the
job done. PTM is
the raw power
tool you've been
missing.

	About PTM and This Site

This site will be one of hopefully many sites to be built along-side the PTM language. This is because this site is, in a manner of speaking, a public test for the language -- after all, how can we expect you to have confidence in a language we aren't using ourselves?

Additionally, this ensures that PTM is tested cross-platform, as the development mirrors are running Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP and, last we checked, SourceForge was hosting on Fedora Linux. As we make upgrades to the language, stable modifications will be uploaded to the site's back-end so we put our reputation on the line before you do. When enough stable modifications have been successfully put into place to constitute another distribution we'll release a new official version to the Downloads section.

	Current Stable Release: 0.5.1 Beta

View README / Installation Instructions ( README )

(From CHANGELOG)

- 04.07.06 - Fixed URL redirect problem in &redirect_header

- 04.07.06 - Added 'defined' tests to assumed $ENV variables throughout the PPA.

- 04.07.06 - Added -w pragma (no longer necessarily left off for strict mode)

- 04.07.06 - Switched all local vars to _PTMLOCAL_ format to avoid any potential
  shared use / trickling down effect of commonly used var names. All internal
  local var names are now prefixed with _PTMLOCAL_. Though only generally
  necessary within functions containing content-related 'eval' statements it was
  best to implement a standard -- also useful for reading debugging information.

- 04.07.06 - Added noted $_PTMLOCAL_CHAR definition to &session_id().

- 04.07.06 - Setup non-breaking DO, PREPROCESS, and REQUIRE tags. These tags no
  longer take their own line in output unless, of course, there are other
  contents on the line with them.

- 04.10.06 - Reimplemented the $_PTM_PREPROCESS variable to allow for the
  displaying of PREPROCESS tag code. Generated REQUIRE tag code has also been
  inserted into the $_PTM_PREPROCESS contents where applicable so it may be seen
  in display statements as well.

- 04.10.06 - Due to the method of reimplementation used to reintegrate
  $_PTM_PREPROCESS, variables can now be carried over from PREPROCESS tags to
  all other tags in strict mode. This is due to the linear eval integration
  used, as opposed to the previous execute-on-encouter PREPROCESS and REQUIRE
  tag processing format.

- 04.10.06 - Fixed &start_session() shift (@_)

- 04.10.06 - PTM is now fully pragma -w and strict mode compliant/functional.
  strict mode (use strict;) is still disabled (commented) by default, though
  it is highly recommended that strict be used in all possible instances. It
  may be enabled, of course, on a document-by-document basis by placing
  "use strict;" at the beginning of the first PREPROCESS or DO tag of your PTM
  document, or enforced across all PTM documents by uncommenting it in the PPA
  (ptm.cgi).

- 04.16.06 - HTTPS definition method changed from existence of HTTPS environment
  variable to port 443.

- 04.16.06 - Added vars $_HTTP_SCHEMA, $_HTTP_HOST, $_HTTP_REQUEST, and
  $_HTTP_PATH to provide sectional access and to simplify global var definition.

- 04.16.06 - Direct PPA Access Forbidden page DTD header changed to HTML 4.01
  Transitional DTD header.

- 04.16.06 - Optimized $_SCRIPT definition and start of file processing.

- 04.16.06 - "PTM_SCRIPT" is no longer loaded into %_GET when using insecure
  script passing. This is not to say, of course, that it is no longer used.
  It is still used necessarily when using insecure script passing -- it's just
  not loaded into the hash. This makes it easier to loop through the keys of
  the %_GET variable.

- 04.24.06 - TEMPLATE, FILE, and NOHTML tags are now processed from within the
  final evaluated &_PTM() return string instead of being preprocessed and stored
  in @_PTM. This means that PREPROCESS and REQUIRE tags within TEMPLATE loaded
  files will be ignored; the loading file must premanage, or in its own way
  recreate the PREPROCESS and REQUIRE sections of any TEMPLATE loaded documents.
  This was a hard decision, but, as dynamically loaded TEMPLATE tag files could
  potentially contain malicious code, in the interest of security we found this
  to be the safest default alternative.

- 04.24.06 - New function &get_file_text_array() added.

	Under the Hood: A Brief Explanation of How PTM Works

For you Perl programmers out that that want to know how PTM works before installing it, here's a quick run-down.

The PPA (Perl Parser Application) is installed to run as either an Apache plugin, a standalone parser for a specific user or directory, or is called via command line. When the PPA runs it expects to be given a *.ptm file to parse. This file is retreived via the PATH_TRANSLATED environment variable if in Apache-installed mode, a GET method field called "PTM_SCRIPT" or a mod_rewrite environment variable called "REDIRECT_PTM_SCRIPT" in standalone mode, both passed via the included ".htaccess" file, or via the command line (@ARGV).

Once a file has been specified to be parsed, that file's contents are read in and parsed in a linear fashion. During parsing, a Perl command set is created which is to be evaluated when parsing is complete. DO tag contents are passed directly into this command set. DISPLAY tag contents are wrapped in a print call and passed in. TEMPLATE, FILE, and NOHTML tag contents are evaluated to get a file name/path which is then read in and then either processed (in the case of TEMPLATE tags) or stored in the next free element of a print array named @_PTM. A call to print from this array is then added, using the current array position counter value named $_PTM_POS, to the command set. Any text that is not within a PTM tag is simply added to the @_PTM array and a request to print from @_PTM at the specified $_PTM_POS counter position is added to the command set.

When all parsing has been completed the command set is run using the eval statement.

Because none of the statements in the requested *.ptm documents are run until the command set has been completed, there is no risk of interfering with the command set's creation by changing global variables within the PTM code. However, during evaluation of the command set, all variables are still accessable and can be changed, at which point code flow could be interrupted by changing these global variables. This is rarely a desired effect, but has been left open so that it may be used at the discretion of the developer.

	This Site's PTM Source Code

Hey, this is supposed to be an open source language, right? Right! That even includes this website. Take a look at how we wrote this page if you're having any trouble getting started with PTM. We have included the source to this page using PTM's NOHTML tag (available as of Version 0.3 Alpha via the asterisk [*] symbol) which replaces a file's HTML characters with their ordinal macros before displaying it. We simply dropped the NOHTML file import into a textarea and voila! Search the file for "$_SCRIPT" (no quotes) to see the import. It's nice to be able to import a file into itself -- just remember not to try this with a TEMPLATE tag or you'll likely throw yourself into an infinite loop if your server doesn't have precautions set up against it.

You'll notice we've stored function code for this page in the "ptm.pt_" file. As we are likely to reuse them on other pages there is no reason to have to duplicate them again.

We have named the included file(s) with a ".pt_" file extension and chmod'ed them for public access so you can manually surf to them in your browser and take a look at their source as well. The ".pt_" extension keeps them from being parsed as PTM scripts when loaded individually. So, for example, to see the source of "ptm.pt_", click here: http://ptm-ppa.sourceforge.net/ptm.pt_. Enjoy =)

<?| 'ptm.pt_' |?>
<? &open_html; ?>
<?
  if ($_GET{'doc'}) {
?>

<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
  <? &open_content_row('Documentation'); ?>
  <? if (-f 'docs/' . $_GET{'doc'}) { ?>
    <a href="docs/<?= $_GET{'doc'} =?>">View / Download this file.</a><br>
    <pre><?* 'docs/' . $_GET{'doc'} *?></pre>
  <? } else { ?>
<pre>Requested File, '<?= $_GET{'doc'} =?>', does not exist in the documentation database.</pre>
  <? } ?>
  <? &close_content_row; ?>
</table>

<?
  } else {
?>

<? &content_header; ?>

<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
  
  <? &open_content_row("About PTM and This Site"); ?>
    This site will be one of hopefully many sites to be built along-side the PTM language. This is because this site is, in a manner of speaking, a public test for the language -- after all, how can we expect you to have confidence in a language we aren't using ourselves?<br><br>
    Additionally, this ensures that PTM is tested cross-platform, as the development mirrors are running Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP and, last we checked, SourceForge was hosting on Fedora Linux. As we make upgrades to the language, stable modifications will be uploaded to the site's back-end so we put our reputation on the line before you do. When enough stable modifications have been successfully put into place to constitute another distribution we'll release a new official version to the <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=148770">Downloads</a> section.
  <? &close_content_row; ?>

<? &open_content_row("Current Stable Release: $current_release"); ?>
    <? if (-f "README") { ?>
      View README / Installation Instructions ( <a href="<?= $_BASE =?>README">README</a> )<br><br>
    <? } ?>
    <? if ($changes = &get_changelog('CHANGELOG', $current_release)) { ?>
      
      (From <a href="<?= $_BASE =?>CHANGELOG">CHANGELOG</a>)<br>
      <textarea rows="10" cols="80" wrap="off"><?= $changes ?></textarea>
    <? } ?>
  <? &close_content_row; ?>

<? &open_content_row("Under the Hood: A Brief Explanation of How PTM Works"); ?>
    For you Perl programmers out that that want to know how PTM works before installing it, here's a quick run-down.<br><br>
    The PPA (Perl Parser Application) is installed to run as either an Apache plugin, a standalone parser for a specific user or directory, or is called via command line. When the PPA runs it expects to be given a *.ptm file to parse. This file is retreived via the PATH_TRANSLATED environment variable if in Apache-installed mode, a GET method field called "PTM_SCRIPT" or a mod_rewrite environment variable called "REDIRECT_PTM_SCRIPT" in standalone mode, both passed via the included ".htaccess" file, or via the command line (@ARGV).<br><br>
    Once a file has been specified to be parsed, that file's contents are read in and parsed in a linear fashion. During parsing, a Perl command set is created which is to be evaluated when parsing is complete. DO tag contents are passed directly into this command set. DISPLAY tag contents are wrapped in a print call and passed in. TEMPLATE, FILE, and NOHTML tag contents are evaluated to get a file name/path which is then read in and then either processed (in the case of TEMPLATE tags) or stored in the next free element of a print array named @_PTM. A call to print from this array is then added, using the current array position counter value named $_PTM_POS, to the command set. Any text that is not within a PTM tag is simply added to the @_PTM array and a request to print from @_PTM at the specified $_PTM_POS counter position is added to the command set.<br><br>
    When all parsing has been completed the command set is run using the eval statement.<br><br>
    Because none of the statements in the requested *.ptm documents are run until the command set has been completed, there is no risk of interfering with the command set's creation by changing global variables within the PTM code. However, during evaluation of the command set, all variables are still accessable and can be changed, at which point code flow could be interrupted by changing these global variables. This is rarely a desired effect, but has been left open so that it may be used at the discretion of the developer.
  <? &close_content_row; ?>

<? &open_content_row("This Site's PTM Source Code"); ?>
    Hey, this is supposed to be an open source language, right? Right! That even includes this website. Take a look at how we wrote this page if you're having any trouble getting started with PTM. We have included the source to this page using PTM's NOHTML tag (available as of Version 0.3 Alpha via the asterisk [*] symbol) which replaces a file's HTML characters with their ordinal macros before displaying it. We simply dropped the NOHTML file import into a textarea and voila! Search the file for "$_SCRIPT" (no quotes) to see the import. It's nice to be able to import a file into itself -- just remember not to try this with a TEMPLATE tag or you'll likely throw yourself into an infinite loop if your server doesn't have precautions set up against it.<br><br>
    You'll notice we've stored function code for this page in the "ptm.pt_" file. As we are likely to reuse them on other pages there is no reason to have to duplicate them again.<br><br>
    We have named the included file(s) with a ".pt_" file extension and chmod'ed them for public access so you can manually surf to them in your browser and take a look at their source as well. The ".pt_" extension keeps them from being parsed as PTM scripts when loaded individually. So, for example, to see the source of "ptm.pt_", click here: <a href="<?= $_BASE ?>ptm.pt_"><?= $_BASE ?>ptm.pt_</a>. Enjoy =)<br><br>
    <textarea rows="10" cols="80" wrap="off"><?* $_SCRIPT ?></textarea>
  <? &close_content_row; ?>

<? &open_content_row("Thanks to the Testers"); ?>
    We would like to thank those of you who have helped in the early phases of PTM development and testing. Everything is coming along according to schedule so far, if you can call it a schedule (lol). We're still looking for testers, of course. Anyone that's interested in the project is welcome to download  the PPA (PTM Parser Application) and get started right away -- any feedback (preferably through the forums) would be much appreciated.<br><br>
    So who is this "we" I speak of? You, me, the currently active testers, and everyone else that is taking an interest in the PTM project. Though few others ever touch the code currently, my fingers can only jump across the keys as fast as your suggestions can motivate them -- though they are jumping pretty quickly these days =)
  <? &close_content_row; ?>
</table>

<?
  }
?>
<? &close_html; ?>

	Thanks to the Testers

We would like to thank those of you who have helped in the early phases of PTM development and testing. Everything is coming along according to schedule so far, if you can call it a schedule (lol). We're still looking for testers, of course. Anyone that's interested in the project is welcome to download the PPA (PTM Parser Application) and get started right away -- any feedback (preferably through the forums) would be much appreciated.

So who is this "we" I speak of? You, me, the currently active testers, and everyone else that is taking an interest in the PTM project. Though few others ever touch the code currently, my fingers can only jump across the keys as fast as your suggestions can motivate them -- though they are jumping pretty quickly these days =)

			Home SVN Downloads Documentation Forum Contact