HTML::AsSubs - functions that construct a HTML syntax tree

- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
- BUGS
- SEE ALSO

# NAME

HTML::AsSubs - functions that construct a HTML syntax tree

# SYNOPSIS

     use HTML::AsSubs;
     $h = body(
               h1("This is the heading"),
               p("This is the first paragraph which contains a ",
                 a({href=>'link.html'}, "link"),
                 " and an ",
                 img({src=>'img.gif', alt=>'image'}),
                 "."
                ),
              );
     print $h->as_HTML;

# DESCRIPTION

This module exports functions that can be used to construct various HTML elements. The functions are named after the tags of the correponding HTML element and are all written in lower case. If the first argument is a hash reference then it will be used to initialize the attributes of this element. The remaining arguments are regarded as content.

For a similar idea (i.e., it's another case where the syntax tree of the Perl source mirrors the syntax tree of the HTML produced), see HTML::Element's `new_from_lol` method.

For what I now think is a cleaner implementation of this same idea, see the excellent module `XML::Generator`, which is what I suggest for actual real-life use. (I suggest this over `HTML::AsSubs` and over `CGI.pm`'s HTML-making functions.)

# ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This module was inspired by the following message:

     Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 16:11:30 +0100
     Subject: Wow! I have a large lightbulb above my head!

     Take a moment to consider these lines:

     %OVERLOAD=( '""' => sub { join("", @{$_[0]}) } );

     sub html { my($type)=shift; bless ["<$type>", @_, "</$type>"]; }

     :-)  I *love* Perl 5!  Thankyou Larry and Ilya.

     Regards,
     Tim Bunce.

     p.s. If you didn't get it, think about recursive data types: html(html())
     p.p.s. I'll turn this into a much more practical example in a day or two.
     p.p.p.s. It's a pity that overloads are not inherited. Is this a bug?

# BUGS

The exported `link()` function overrides the builtin `link()` function. The exported `tr()` function must be called using &tr(...) syntax because it clashes with the builtin tr/../../ operator.

# SEE ALSO

the HTML::Element manpage, the XML::Generator manpage

HTML::AsSubs - functions that construct a HTML syntax tree