feat(users/sterni/nix): cursed nix html DSL

Couldn't sleep, so I made a surprisingly neat way to render HTML
documents in Nix using our favorite feature __findFile:

  let
    inherit (depot.users.sterni.nix.html) __findFile esc;

  in

  <html> {} [
    (<head> {} [
      (<meta> { charset = "utf-8"; } null)
      (<title> {} (esc "hello"))
    ])
    (<body> {} [
      (<h1> {} (esc "hello world"))
    ])
  ]

=> "<html><head><meta charset=\"utf-8\"/><title>hello</title></head><body><h1>hello world</h1></body></html>"

Change-Id: Id36808a56ae3da3b5263c06f29342fc22d105c21
Reviewed-on: https://cl.tvl.fyi/c/depot/+/3410
Tested-by: BuildkiteCI
Reviewed-by: tazjin <mail@tazj.in>
This commit is contained in:
sterni 2021-08-25 02:45:12 +02:00
parent 17d78867bb
commit 9ed439bfbd
3 changed files with 351 additions and 0 deletions

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# html.nix — _the_ most cursed Nix HTML DSL
A quick example to show you what it looks like:
```nix
# Note: this example is for standalone usage out of depot
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
let
# zero dependency, one file implementation
htmlNix = import ./path/to/html.nix { };
# make the magic work
inherit (htmlNix) __findFile esc withDoctype;
in
pkgs.writeText "example.html" (withDoctype (<html> {} [
(<head> {} [
(<meta> { charset = "utf-8"; } null)
(<title> {} (esc "hello world"))
])
(<body> {} [
(<h1> {} (esc "hello world"))
(<p> { class = "intro"; } (esc ''
welcome to the land of sillyness!
''))
(<ul> {} [
(<li> {} [
(esc "check out ")
(<a> { href = "https://code.tvl.fyi"; } "depot")
])
(<li> {} [
(esc "find ")
(<a> { href = "https://cl.tvl.fyi/q/hashtag:cursed"; } "cursed things")
])
])
])
]))
```
Convince yourself it works:
```console
$ $BROWSER $(nix-build example.nix)
```
Alternatively, in depot:
```console
$ $BROWSER $(nix-build -A users.sterni.nix.html.tests)
```
## Creating tags
An empty tag is passed `null` as its content argument:
```nix
<link> {
rel = "stylesheet";
href = "/main.css";
type = "text/css";
} null
# => "<link href=\"/main.css\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\"/>"
```
Content is expected to be HTML:
```nix
<div> { class = "foo"; } "<strong>hi</strong>"
# => "<div class=\"foo\"><strong>hi</strong></div>"
```
If it's not, be sure to escape it:
```nix
<p> {} (esc "A => B")
# => "<p>A =&gt; B</p>"
```
Nesting tags works of course:
```nix
<div> {} (<strong> {} (<em> {} "hi"))
# => "<div><strong><em>hi</em></strong></div>"
```
If the content of a tag is a list, it's concatenated:
```nix
<h1> {} [
(esc "The ")
(<strong> {} "Nix")
(esc " ")
(<em> {} "Expression")
(esc " Language")
]
# => "<h1>The <strong>Nix</strong> <em>Expression</em> Language</h1>"
```
More detailed documentation can be found in `nixdoc`-compatible
comments in the source file (`default.nix` in this directory).
## How does this work?
*Theoretically* expressions like `<nixpkgs>` are just ordinary paths —
their actual value is determined from `NIX_PATH`. `html.nix` works
because of how this is actually implemented: At [parse time][spath-parsing]
Nix transparently translates an expression like `<foo>` into
`__findFile __nixPath "foo"`:
```
nix-repl> <nixpkgs>
/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/vuizvui/nixpkgs
nix-repl> __findFile __nixPath "nixpkgs"
/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/vuizvui/nixpkgs
```
This translation doesn't take any scoping issues into account --
so we can just shadow `__findFile` and make it return anything,
even a function:
```
nix-repl> __findFile = nixPath: str:
/**/ if str == "double" then x: x * 2
else if str == "triple" then x: x * 3
else throw "what?"
nix-repl> <double> 2
4
nix-repl> <triple> 3
9
nix-repl> <quadruple> 4
error: what?
```
Exactly this is what we are doing in `html.nix`:
Using `let inherit (htmlNix) __findFile; in` we shadow the builtin `__findFile`
with a function which returns a function rendering a particular HTML tag.
[spath-parsing]: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/293220bed5a75efc963e33c183787e87e55e28d9/src/libexpr/parser.y#L410-L416

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# Copyright © 2021 sterni
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
#
# This file provides a cursed HTML DSL for nix which works by overloading
# the NIX_PATH lookup operation via angle bracket operations, e. g. `<nixpkgs>`.
{ ... }:
let
/* Escape everything we have to escape in an HTML document if either
in a normal context or an attribute string (`<>&"'`).
A shorthand for this function called `esc` is also provided.
Type: string -> string
Example:
escapeMinimal "<hello>"
=> "&lt;hello&gt;"
*/
escapeMinimal = builtins.replaceStrings
[ "<" ">" "&" "\"" "'" ]
[ "&lt;" "&gt;" "&amp;" "&quot;" "&#039;" ];
/* Return a string with a correctly rendered tag of the given name,
with the given attributes which are automatically escaped.
If the content argument is `null`, the tag will have no children nor a
closing element. If the content argument is a string it is used as the
content as is (unescaped). If the content argument is a list, its
elements are concatenated.
`renderTag` is only an internal function which is reexposed as `__findFile`
to allow for much neater syntax than calling `renderTag` everywhere:
```nix
{ depot, ... }:
let
inherit (depot.users.sterni.nix.html) __findFile esc;
in
<html> {} [
(<head> {} (<title> {} (esc "hello world")))
(<body> {} [
(<h1> {} (esc "hello world"))
(<p> {} (esc "foo bar"))
])
]
```
As you can see, the need to call a function disappears, instead the
`NIX_PATH` lookup operation via `<foo>` is overloaded, so it becomes
`renderTag "foo"` automatically.
Since the content argument may contain the result of other `renderTag`
calls, we can't escape it automatically. Instead this must be done manually
using `esc`.
Type: string -> attrs<string> -> (list<string> | string | null) -> string
Example:
<link> {
rel = "stylesheet";
href = "/css/main.css";
type = "text/css";
} null
renderTag "link" {
rel = "stylesheet";
href = "/css/main.css";
type = "text/css";
} null
=> "<link href=\"/css/main.css\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\"/>"
<p> {} [
"foo "
(<strong> {} "bar")
]
renderTag "p" {} "foo <strong>bar</strong>"
=> "<p>foo <strong>bar</strong></p>"
*/
renderTag = tag: attrs: content:
let
attrs' = builtins.concatStringsSep "" (
builtins.map (n:
" ${escapeMinimal n}=\"${escapeMinimal (toString attrs.${n})}\""
) (builtins.attrNames attrs)
);
content' =
if builtins.isList content
then builtins.concatStringsSep "" content
else content;
in
if content == null
then "<${tag}${attrs'}/>"
else "<${tag}${attrs'}>${content'}</${tag}>";
/* Prepend "<!DOCTYPE html>" to a string.
Type: string -> string
Example:
withDoctype (<body> {} (esc "hello"))
=> "<!DOCTYPE html><body>hello</body>"
*/
withDoctype = doc: "<!DOCTYPE html>" + doc;
in {
inherit escapeMinimal renderTag withDoctype;
__findFile = _: renderTag;
esc = escapeMinimal;
}

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{ depot, pkgs, ... }:
let
inherit (depot.users.sterni.nix.html)
__findFile
esc
withDoctype
;
exampleDocument = withDoctype (<html> { lang = "en"; } [
(<head> {} [
(<meta> { charset = "utf-8"; } null)
(<title> {} "html.nix example document")
(<link> {
rel = "license";
href = "https://code.tvl.fyi/about/LICENSE";
type = "text/html";
} null)
(<style> {} (esc ''
hgroup h2 {
font-weight: normal;
}
dd {
margin: 0;
}
''))
])
(<body> {} [
(<main> {} [
(<hgroup> {} [
(<h1> {} (esc "html.nix"))
(<h2> {} [
(<em> {} "the")
(esc " most cursed HTML DSL ever!")
])
])
(<dl> {} [
(<dt> {} [
(esc "Q: Wait, it's all ")
(<a> {
href = "https://cl.tvl.fyi/q/hashtag:cursed";
} (esc "cursed"))
(esc " nix hacks?")
])
(<dd> {} (esc "A: Always has been. 🔫"))
(<dt> {} (esc "Q: Why does this work?"))
(<dd> {} [
(esc "Because nix ")
(<a> {
href = "https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/293220bed5a75efc963e33c183787e87e55e28d9/src/libexpr/parser.y#L410-L416";
} (esc "translates "))
(<a> {
href = "https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/293220bed5a75efc963e33c183787e87e55e28d9/src/libexpr/lexer.l#L100";
} (esc "SPATH tokens"))
(esc " like ")
(<code> {} (esc "<nixpkgs>"))
(esc " into calls to ")
(<code> {} (esc "__findFile"))
(esc " in the ")
(<em> {} (esc "current"))
(esc " scope.")
])
])
])
])
]);
in
pkgs.runCommandNoCC "html.nix.html" {
passAsFile = [ "exampleDocument" ];
inherit exampleDocument;
nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgs.html5validator ];
} ''
set -x
test "${esc "<> && \" \'"}" = "&lt;&gt; &amp;&amp; &quot; &#039;"
# slow as hell unfortunately
html5validator "$exampleDocumentPath"
mv "$exampleDocumentPath" "$out"
set +x
''