Pesto - Expressive Templates

Clean & Expressive Syntax

Pesto provides a clean syntax using custom HTML attributes. It understands the context of {{ variables }} and escapes them to prevent XSS.

Intuitive Attributes

Use attributes like php-foreach and php-if directly in your HTML.

<ul>
    <li php-foreach="range(1, 10) as $number"
        php-if="$number > 7">
        Item {{ $number }}
    </li>
</ul>

Clarity with <template>

For greater clarity, use the <template> tag, which will not be included in the final render.

<ul>
    <template php-foreach="range(1, 10) as $number">
       <li php-if="$number > 7">Item {{ $number }}</li>
    </template>
</ul>

View Composition

Pesto makes it easy to reuse parts of your views.

The <template> Tag

The <template> tag allows you to define php-* attributes that will be evaluated, but the tag itself will not be included in the final render.

Input

<p php-if="$user->isAdmin()">Admin</p>

Output

<p>Admin</p>

Input

<template php-if="$user->isAdmin()">Admin</template>

Output

Admin

Partials & Slots

When working with views composed of other views, you can use partials and slots to avoid repetition.

Layout: layouts/app.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>{{ $title }}</title>
</head>
<body>
    <header>{{ $header | slot }}</header>
    <main>{{ $main | slot }}</main>
</body>
</html>

View: views/home.html

<template php-partial="layouts/app.html" php-with="['title' => 'Home']">
    <!-- Named slot -->
    <nav php-slot="header">
        <a href="/">Home</a>
        <a href="/about">About</a>
    </nav>

    <!--Main Slot -->
    <section>
        <h1>Home</h1>
        <p>Lorem ipsum...</p>
    <section>
</template>

Nested Views

Pesto allows you to nest views, reusing the same layout multiple times in the same view.

<template php-partial="list.html">
    <li>Item</li>
    <li>
        <ul php-partial="list.html">
            <li>nested item</li>
            ....
        </ul>
    </li>
</template>

Control Flow

Pesto provides foreach and if directives, sufficient for building any view.

If Attribute

Conditionally render blocks. php-elseif and php-else must be siblings of php-if.

<p php-if="$user->isAdmin()">Admin</p>
<p php-elseif="$user->isModerator()">Moderator</p>
<p php-else>Guest</p>

Loop

We can use to render a list of items based on an array or iterable objects.

<li php-foreach="$list as $item">
    {{ $item }}
</li>

Inline

Combine directives in one single tag.

<ul>
  <li php-foreach="$users as $user" php-if="$user->isAdmin()">
      {{ $user->name | title }};
  </li>
</ul>

Short Syntax

Every php-* attribute has a shorter p:* alias. Both forms work everywhere and can be mixed in the same template.

Long form	Short form
php-if	p:if
php-elseif	p:elseif
php-else	p:else
php-foreach	p:foreach
php-partial	p:partial
php-with	p:with
php-slot	p:slot

<ul p:if="count($items) > 0">
    <li p:foreach="$items as $item">{{ $item }}</li>
</ul>
<p p:else>No items</p>

If an element has both forms of the same directive, the long form wins. Since no client-side framework claims the p: prefix, it is safe to combine with Vue, Alpine.js, or Lit bindings.

Command Line

Pesto ships with a pesto binary (installed at vendor/bin/pesto) to validate and inspect templates without rendering them.

vendor/bin/pesto help

Command	Description
pesto compile <template_path>	Validate and compile a template, print the result
pesto lint <path> [<path>...]	Validate template files or directories
pesto help	Show the help message

Both commands read the template from stdin when no path is given (or with -).

Compile

Compiles a template and prints the resulting PHP, so you can see exactly what Pesto generates. If the template is invalid, the errors are printed and the command exits with 1.

echo '<li p:foreach="$items as $item" p:if="$item->visible">{{ $item->name | title }}</li>' | vendor/bin/pesto compile

<?php foreach($items as $item): ?><?php if ($item->visible): ?><li><?= $__pesto->output($item->name, ['title', 'escape']) ?></li><?php endif; ?><?php endforeach; ?>

Lint

Validates templates without rendering them: it checks for unclosed {{ }} expressions, orphan php-else/php-elseif directives, unprocessed directives, and PHP syntax errors in the compiled output.

# Single files or directories
# (scanned recursively for .html and .php)
vendor/bin/pesto lint views/home.php
vendor/bin/pesto lint views/ emails/

# Or from stdin
echo '<p php-else>Guest</p>' | vendor/bin/pesto lint

 ✗ <stdin>
   - Orphan "php-else" directive on line 1: it must be an immediate sibling of a "php-if" element.

# With --views the linter also verifies that every
# php-partial reference exists in the templates root
vendor/bin/pesto lint --views views/

 ✓ views/home.php
 ✓ views/layouts/app.php
 ✓ views/partials/nav.php

Linted 3 templates: no errors found.

The exit code is 0 when all templates pass and 1 otherwise, so lint fits directly into a CI pipeline.

Filters

Apply transformations to variables using the pipe | operator. You can also create your own.

Usage

<p>{{ $text | upper }}</p>

Chain Filters

<p>{{ $text | capitalize | truncate:50,... }}</p>

Filters with Arguments

<p>{{ $createAt | date:'m-d-Y' }}</p>

Built-in Filters

raw: Prevents escaping.
String: upper, lower, capitalize, title, trim, nl2br, strip_tags, slug, join.

Add Filters

Create a class with public methods and register it.

1. Create a filter class

// CustomFilter.php
#[AsFilter(name: 'truncate')]
public function truncate(
    string $value,
    int $length,
    string $end = '...'
) : string
{
    //...
}

2. Register it in the factory

$pesto = PestoFactory::create([
    templatesPath: => __DIR__ . '/views',
    cachePath: => __DIR__ . '/cache', [
        new CustomFilter(),
    ]
]);

git clone https://github.com/millancore/pesto.git
cd pesto && composer install
composer bench

Generate an HTML chart report with composer bench:chart

PHPBench — 100 iterations, 10 revolutions, 5 warmup runs. All engines with file caching enabled.