6.5. Mason
The HTML::Mason Perl module, often referred to as Mason, is another template solution. Like Embperl, it allows you to embed full Perl expressions within HTML documents. However, unlike the other template solutions already mentioned, Mason focuses on supporting components that can be embedded within one another. This goes beyond creating modular CGI code. For many web sites, especially large ones, multiple elements on each page as well as overall page layout is shared across many pages. Mason allows you to modularize HTML as well as code and reuse both throughout your web site.
For example, a web page may be composed of a header and footer that is shared across your web site and possibly a navigation sidebar that is shared across many pages. With Mason you can create components for each of these that can easily be included in documents. Mason does not distinguish between static components and dynamic components; any component may include code and include other components. Mason also allows components to act as filters.
Although it also supports a CGI mode, Mason -- more than Embperl -- essentially requires mod_perl . First, due to the component nature of Mason, it makes much more sense to have it handle files directly instead of having requests pass through a CGI script. Second, because Mason is written entirely in Perl (unlike Embperl, which contains compiled C), it is much less efficient when not used with mod_perl, because with mod_perl the Perl source is only loaded, interpreted, and compiled once instead of with each request.
Thus, Mason is not truly CGI technology. On the other hand, given Mason's increasing popularity, it seems inappropriate to omit Mason in a discussion of HTML template solutions. We will limit our discussion to an overview that allows you to compare against other solutions. For more information on Mason, visit the site at http://www.masonhq.com/.
6.5.1. A Component Approach
Mason's component approach differs from the other solutions we've discussed; those solutions differed from each other primarily by the degree of power and complexity of their template commands. You can create a component architecture with the other template solutions as well, but not to the same degree that you can with Mason. Here is how the other solutions compare in this regard:
As we saw in our footer example earlier (see Chapter 6, "HTML Templates"), SSI's include command works great but SSI commands are limited to static documents: you can include CGI script output in HTML documents but not vice versa.
HTML::Template has a similar TMPL_INCLUDE command, but you can only include literal file contents that are interpreted as part of the same template and executed in the context of the current CGI script. HTML::Template was not designed to allow the dynamically generated output of one CGI script in the output of another. It is possible, but it's messy (refer to the FAQ section of the HTML::Template documentation).
Embperl is powerful enough that you can make it do just about whatever you need, but its emphasis is not on components, and it does not have all of the features that Mason has for filtering or automatically executing components according to preset rules.
Mason does not draw a distinction between files containing code, files containing HTML, or even files containing data. Any text file can be included as a component within any other file. Mason also supports filters and autohandlers that allow you to modify the output of existing components without editing them directly.
For the sake of comparison, CGI.pm does not offer a way to include the output of one dynamic request within another without using another module such as LWP. Typically, however, you would move the code that needs to be shared into a module that can be used by several CGI scripts. Static content can of course be manually included by reading and printing the file in Perl.
Does this mean that Mason is a better solution than the others? Not at all -- it is only better suited for those sites with many shared components that can benefit from it. Mason can make such sites easier to maintain if they are designed well, but it does add complexity because maintainers must understand all of the interactions between the different components. What looks like a single page to a browser may be comprised of several separate components, so maintainers need to know where to look to make changes. It also requires HTML designers to work closely with CGI developers because the line between the two can get fuzzy with Mason. However, for large sites where it makes sense, it can certainly be an elegant solution.
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