[stringtemplate-interest] format option implementation details

[Terence Parr]

On Dec 10, 2006, at 12:34 PM, John Snyders wrote:
>>> 2) if the renderer is associated with type String then it is
>>> possible for the value of an attribute to be rendered twice. This
>>> will only happen if the format is applied to a template rather than
>>> an attribute.It happens because the String attribute is rendered
>>> and written as part of the value of the template expansion then the
>>> format is applied to the String value of the template. Now that I
>>> think of this more it may be a bug. I'll look into it.
>>
>> Just an efficiency thing.
>
> Not just efficiency. I depends on if your rendering is idempotent.
> I had a renderer that escaped quotes " --> \". Now I end up with \\"

So if you have "a $it$ b"; format="f" and $it$ is a String object  
with its own renderer you get renderer applied to $it$ object and  
then you apply format to the toString() version of the entire  
template?  Seems ok unless, as you say, you are escaping things.   
But, that is operator error as you don't want to escape templates  
only attributes I'd say.

Ter