Mason::Manual::Intro(3pm)				User Contributed Perl Documentation				 Mason::Manual::Intro(3pm)

NAME

       Mason::Manual::Intro - Getting started with Mason

DESCRIPTION

       A few quick examples to get your feet wet with Mason.  See Mason::Manual::Setup for how to use Mason to generate web sites.

EXAMPLE 1
   Hello world (from command-line)
       After installing Mason, you should have a "mason" command in your installation path (e.g. "/usr/local/bin"). Try this:

	   % mason
	   Hello! The local time is <% scalar(localtime) %>.
	   ^D

       (where '^D' means ctrl-D or EOF). You should see something like

	   Hello! The local time is Wed Mar  2 17:11:54 2011.

       The "mason" command reads in a Mason component (template), runs it, and prints the result to standard output. Notice that the tag

	   <% scalar(localtime) %>

       was replaced with the value of its expression. This is called a substitution tag and is a central piece of Mason syntax.

EXAMPLE 2
   Email generator (from script)
       The command line is good for trying quick things, but eventually you're going to want to put your Mason components in files.

       In a test directory, create a directory "comps" and create a file "email.mc" with the following:

	   <%class>
	   has 'amount';
	   has 'name';
	   </%class>

	   Dear <% $.name %>,

	       We are pleased to inform you that you have won $<% sprintf("%.2f", $.amount) %>!

	   Sincerely,
	   The Lottery Commission

	   <%init>
	   die "amount must be a positive value!" unless $.amount > 0;
	   </%init>

       In addition to the substitution tag we've seen before, we declare two attributes, "amount" and "name", to be passed into the component; and
       we declare a piece of initialization code to validate the amount.

       In the same test directory, create a script "test.pl" with the following:

	    1  #!/usr/local/bin/perl
	    2  use Mason;
	    3  my $interp = Mason->new(comp_root => 'comps', data_dir => 'data');
	    4  print $interp->run('/email', name => 'Joe', amount => '1500')->output;

       Line 3 creates a Mason interpreter, the main Mason object. It specifies two parameters: a component root, indicating the directory
       hierarchy where your components will live; and a data directory, which Mason will use for internal purposes such as class generation and
       caching.

       Line 4 runs the template - notice that the ".mc" extension is added automatically - passing values for the "name" and "amount" attributes.

       Run "test.pl", and you should see

	   Dear Joe,

	       We are pleased to inform you that you have won $1500.00!

	   Sincerely,
	   The Lottery Commission

SEE ALSO

       Mason::Manual::Tutorial, Mason::Manual

AUTHOR

       Jonathan Swartz <swartz@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2011 by Jonathan Swartz.

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

perl v5.14.2							    2012-05-02						 Mason::Manual::Intro(3pm)