Command line

The texl command renders a template file and writes the result to the terminal or to a file.

texl report.texl                 # print the rendering
texl report.texl -o report.md    # write it to report.md

Installation

You need Rust 1.85 or later. Install the command from the repository:

cargo install --git https://github.com/onlabsorg/texl texl-cli

or, from a clone of the repository:

cargo install --path texl-cli

Both install a binary named texl in Cargo's bin folder (usually ~/.cargo/bin).

Reference

Synopsis

texl [-o OUTPUT] FILE
texl -h

texl loads the template FILE, renders it, and writes the rendering to standard output, or to OUTPUT if given. The output is exactly the rendered text, encoded as UTF-8; texl adds nothing to it, not even a final line break.

Arguments and options

Argument	Meaning
`FILE`	The template file to render. Required. A relative path is relative to the current folder.
`-o OUTPUT`, `--output OUTPUT`	Writes the rendering to the file `OUTPUT` instead of standard output. The file is created, or replaced if it exists. Its folder must exist.
`-h`, `--help`	Prints a summary of the usage and exits.

Imports

FILE is loaded as a document, by its absolute file:// URL. The imports inside it are resolved against its location, whatever the current folder is:

In `/home/me/site/index.texl`, `texl.import(...)` of	loads
`"header.texl"`	`/home/me/site/header.texl`
`"../shared/footer.texl"`	`/home/me/shared/footer.texl`
`"/etc/texl/lib.texl"`	`/etc/texl/lib.texl`
`"file:///etc/texl/lib.texl"`	`/etc/texl/lib.texl`
`"https://example.com/a.texl"`	nothing: other URL schemes are not supported

An import that cannot be read resolves to Nothing, and the rendering goes on.

Globals

The command passes no globals: a template can use the built-in names and the names it binds or imports.

Exit status

Status	Meaning
0	The template was rendered and written.
1	`FILE` could not be read, or `OUTPUT` could not be written.
2	The command line is invalid, for example `FILE` is missing.

When the status is not 0, a message on standard error explains why:

texl: report.texl: No such file or directory (os error 2)

Errors inside the template do not change the status: they appear in the output as [[Undefined]] (see Troubleshooting).

Examples

Render a template and page through the result:

texl notes.texl | less

Render every template in a folder into Markdown files:

for f in pages/*.texl; do
    texl "$f" -o "build/$(basename "$f" .texl).md"
done

Texl