README

A lightweight and flexible text binding engine with support for chained placeholder functions.

TextBinder is a small PHP library for binding variables into text using placeholders, with the ability to apply chained functions to transform values on the fly. It is designed to be simple, extensible, and dependency-free.

Features

• Simple placeholder replacement using {variable} syntax
• Chained function support: {variable.func1.func2} (multiple functions in sequence)
• Built-in helper functions (exists, ok)
• Support for custom user-defined functions
• Automatic normalization of function outputs
• Zero dependencies (except ext-json)
• Compatible with PHP 7.4+

🫡 Usage

🚀 Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require nabeghe/text-binder

Or manually include the TextBinder.php if you want to keep it old school.

Basic Example

use Nabeghe\TextBinder\TextBinder;

$binder = new TextBinder();

$text = 'Hello {name}!';
echo $binder->render($text, [
    'name' => 'Elsa'
]);

Output: Hello Elsa!

Chained Functions (Multiple Functions in Sequence)

TextBinder allows applying multiple functions to a single placeholder using dot notation:

$binder->addFunc('upper', fn($v) => strtoupper($v));
$binder->addFunc('surround', fn($v) => ">>$v<<");

$text = 'Transformed: {name.upper.surround}';
echo $binder->render($text, [
    'name' => 'world'
]);

Output: Transformed: >>WORLD<<

You can chain any number of functions, mixing built-in, custom, or native PHP functions:

$text = 'Check: {username.exists.strlen}';
echo $binder->render($text, [
    'username' => 'admin'
]);

Output: Check: 1

Missing Variables

By default, missing variables are replaced with an empty string:

$text = 'Hello {name}';
echo $binder->render($text, []);

You can disable this behavior:

echo $binder->render($text, [], false);

Custom Functions

You can register your own functions and use them in placeholders:

$binder->addFunc('upper', function ($value) {
    return strtoupper($value);
});

$text = 'Hello {name.upper}';
echo $binder->render($text, [
    'name' => 'world'
]);

Output: Hello WORLD

Native PHP Functions

If a registered function is not found, TextBinder will automatically fall back to native PHP functions when available:

$text = 'Length: {name.strlen}';
echo $binder->render($text, [
    'name' => 'TextBinder'
]);

📖 License

Licensed under the MIT license, see LICENSE.md for details.