Whitespace operators

Template::HAML supports HAML's whitespace-removal modifiers and whitespace-preservation behaviors so you can control how generated HTML is laid out.

Outer trim >

A trailing > on a tag strips whitespace immediately around the tag, both before its open tag and after its close tag.

%p first
%p> middle
%p last

<p>first</p><p>middle</p><p>last</p>

This works for any tag, including void elements:

%img
%img>
%img

<img><img><img>

Inner trim <

A trailing < on a tag strips whitespace immediately inside the tag, both after the open tag and before the close tag.

%blockquote<
  %div
    Foo!

<blockquote><div>
  Foo!
</div></blockquote>

When combined with content on the same line plus a single child, the child renders inline:

%p< hello
  %strong world

<p>hello<strong>world</strong></p>

Combined <> / ><

Both modifiers can be combined in either order:

%p<>
  %a hi

<p><a>hi</a></p>

Preserved tags

The pre and textarea elements automatically preserve their inner whitespace by replacing newlines with the 
 HTML entity. This keeps the rendered display intact while still allowing HAML to indent the source.

%pre
  Line 1
  Line 2

<pre>&#x000A;  Line 1&#x000A;  Line 2&#x000A;</pre>

The list of preserved elements is configurable via the preserve option on Template::HAML::Config:

my $cfg = Template::HAML::Config.new(:preserve('pre', 'textarea', 'code'));
HAML.render(:src($haml), :config($cfg));

Global whitespace removal

To apply > and < to every tag at once, set remove-whitespace: True on the config. See Configuration for details. Preserved tags keep their inner whitespace but still have outer whitespace stripped.

Forced preserve ~

The ~ operator works like = (eval and emit), but additionally replaces newlines in the result with 
. This is useful when an interpolated string contains newlines you want to keep literal in the rendered output.

~ "line1\nline2"

line1
line2

Like =, the result is HTML-escaped by default. Disable escaping globally with escape_html => False on the config.