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My MiniJinja Starter Template

Ready To Copy/Paste

This is the basic MiniJinja1 code I use to get started with a new project:

---
[dependencies]
minijinja = { version = "2.9.0", features = ["custom_syntax"] }
---

use minijinja::{Environment, Value, context};
use minijinja::syntax::SyntaxConfig;

fn main() {
    let template = "Hello, [@ name @]!";

    let name = Value::from("MiniJinja");

    let mut env = get_env();

    env.add_template(
        "example-template", template 
    ).unwrap();

    match env.get_template("example-template") {
        Ok(jinja) => {
            match jinja.render(
                context!(name)
            ) {
                Ok(output) => {
                    println!("{}", output);
                }
                Err(e) => { 
                    println!("{}", e);
                }
            }
        }
        Err(e) => {
            println!("{}", e);
        }
    }
}

fn get_env() -> Environment<'static> {
    let mut env = Environment::new();
    env.set_syntax(
        SyntaxConfig::builder()
            .block_delimiters("[!", "!]")
            .variable_delimiters("[@", "@]")
            .comment_delimiters("[#", "#]")
            .build()
            .unwrap(),
    );
    env
}
Output:
Hello, MiniJinja!

Custom Tokens vs. Default Tokens

I use custom tokens for my MiniJinja projects. They are changed using the .set_syntax() call in the get_env() function. Specifically:

  • {% %} becomes [! !]
  • {{ }} becomes [@ @]
  • {# #} becomes [# #]

If find the square brackets easier to track visually. I also find hitting Shift+1 easier than hitting Shift+5.

You can switch to the default tokes by replacing:

let mut env = get_env();

in the main() function with:

let mut env = Environment::new();

and then deleting the get_env() function.

My Go-To Engine

I use MiniJinja for Neopoligen2. My site is currently 2,963 pages. It outputs in less than 10 seconds with an empty cache3. I could probably add some optimizations, but it's plenty fast for me as is. I've yet to run into something that I can't get it to do.

Definitely worth checking out if you're in the market.

-a

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Footnotes

1 ⤴
2 ⤴

My personal website builder.

3 ⤴

And about 1 second with a warm cache.