Forum Discussion

james_scee's avatar
james_scee
Ace
11 years ago

How do you call FreeMarker macros on a page?

[Mod Note: This was originally posted as a comment to this TKB article: Creating FreeMarker macros for custom components and endpoints]

 

How do you call them on the page, as I'm trying as via the freemarker code, but to no avail.

 

macro:

 

<#macro m_singular num words> 
<#if (num == 1)> 
<#return words.singular> 
</#if> 
<#return words.plural>
</#macro>  

attempting to call:

 

<@m_singular num=count.value words={"singular":"post","plural":"posts"} />
  • PaoloT's avatar
    PaoloT
    Lithium Alumni (Retired)
    11 years ago

    Hi James,

     

    not sure if your syntax is correct. Have a look at the Freemarker Manual page  - they have an example:

     

    #Example: Macro with parameters:

<#macro test foo bar baaz>
  Test text, and the params: ${foo}, ${bar}, ${baaz}
</#macro>
<#-- call the macro: -->
<@test foo="a" bar="b" baaz=5*5-2/>

     Hope that helps,

    • AdamN's avatar
      AdamN
      Khoros Oracle
      11 years ago

      I think Paolo is right. A macro cannot return a value. The "return" directive for a macro is just used for exiting the macro. If you need to return a value, you can use a function:

      http://freemarker.org/docs/ref_directive_function.html

       

      So you have a couple options...

       

      If you want to use a macro, you can update your macro definition to just output the string instead of returning a value. For example:

      <#macro m_singular num words> 
<#if (num == 1)> 
${words.singular}
</#if> 
${words.plural}
</#macro>

       Then to call the macro:

      <@m_singular num=2 words={"singular":"post","plural":"posts"} />

       

      If you'd prefer to change to a function instead, it would look something like this:

      <#function m_singular num words> 
<#if (num == 1)> 
<#return words.singular> 
</#if> 
<#return words.plural>
</#function>

       And to call the function:

      ${m_singular(2,{"singular":"post","plural":"posts"})}

       

      I hope this helps! If you're still having trouble getting this to work, let us know what error message(s) you're encountering.