README

Sharp

A fast, AST-based PHP view engine with #-directive syntax

Documentation · Changelog · Contributing · MIT License · Sponsors

Why Sharp?

• #directive syntax — clean, readable templates without a framework dependency
• Full AST pipeline — Lexer → Parser → Validator → Optimizer → Codegen → FileCache; no regex string replacement
• Zero runtime overhead for directives — compiled and inlined at build time
• Plain PHP expressions — no dot-notation translator, no magic; {{ $user->name }} is exactly what it says
• Standalone — PHP 8.1+, zero runtime dependencies, drop into any project

Installation

composer require bynhan/sharp

Quick start

use Sharp\Sharp;

$sharp = new Sharp();                   // reads/creates sharp.config.json at getcwd()
echo $sharp->render('home', ['user' => $user]);

templates/home.sp

#extends('layouts.main')

#section('content')
  <h1>Hello, {{ $user->name }}!</h1>

  #foreach($user->posts as $post)
    <p>{{ $loop->iteration }}. {{ $post->title }}</p>
  #endforeach
#endsection

Sharp auto-creates sharp.config.json on first run. No manual setup required.

Features at a glance

Dev Mode & Debugging

Sharp includes a dev mode that injects source annotations into rendered HTML, enabling Chrome DevTools to trace any element back to its .sp template source.

Enable via sharp.config.json (recommended for local development):

{
  "viewPath": "templates/",
  "sandbox": true,
  "devMode": true
}

Enable via code (takes priority over config):

$sharp = new Sharp();
$sharp->setProduction(false); // dev mode — injects annotations (default)
$sharp->setProduction(true);  // production mode — no annotations

When dev mode is on, every HTML element in the rendered output will carry a data-sharp-src attribute:

<!-- rendered output -->
<div data-sharp-src="/abs/path/templates/home.sp:8" class="user-card">

Sharp also writes .sharp/ast/<hash>.ast source-map files that the VSCode extension uses for Xdebug breakpoint translation.

Jump to template source from Chrome:

Add this bookmarklet to your browser to jump from a hovered element directly to its .sp source in VSCode:

javascript:(function(){
  var el = document.querySelector(':hover');
  while(el && !el.dataset.sharpSrc) el = el.parentElement;
  if(el) location.href = 'vscode://file/' + el.dataset.sharpSrc;
})();

Always set "devMode": false or call $sharp->setProduction(true) before deploying — dev mode exposes template file paths in public HTML.

Documentation

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for setup instructions, coding standards, and the PR checklist.

git clone https://github.com/bynhan/sharp.git && cd sharp
composer install
./vendor/bin/phpunit --testdox

Sponsors

Sharp is free, open-source software. If it saves you time, consider sponsoring its development.

No sponsors yet — become the first!

License

Sharp is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.