Quick-start: ZptSharp command-line app

This guide is for those who wish to use the ready-built command-line application to render ZPT templates using a model.

Install prerequisites

To use the command-line ZptSharp application, you must have either of the following environments installed:

  • .NET Framework 4.6.1 or higher (and preferably, the NuGet command-line)
  • .NET Core 2.0 or higher (or .NET 5+)

Install ZptSharp NuGet package

With .NET Framework & NuGet, use this command. If you do not have the NuGet command line utility then you must download and extract the package manually instead.

nuget install -o packages ZptSharp.Cli

Alternatively, with .NET Core (or .NET 5+), use this command:

dotnet tool install --global ZptSharp.Cli

Create a JSON model file

The ZptSharp command-line app reads its model from a JSON file. Create a text file at a path of your choice named model.json. Its content should be as-follows:

{"Message": "Hello world!"}

Create a ZPT template

Create a new text file (again, at a path of your choice) named quickstart.pt to serve as our first ZPT document template. This should have the following content.

<html>
<head>
<title>ZptSharp 'Hello world' example</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Example command-line app usage</h1>
<p tal:content="here/Message">The greeting message appears here.</p>
</body>
</html>

Use the command-line app

The command-line app is located in a directory within the package named tools, in a subdirectory named either net461 or netcoreapp2.0. These directories are for the .NET Framework and the .NET Core version of the app respectively. To run the app, use the following command; on a .NET Core environment, prefix it with dotnet and a space.

ZptSharp.Cli.exe -m path\to\model.json -o path\to\output -e html path\to\quickstart.pt

In this command, you should substitute:

  • path\to\model.json with the path (relative or absolute) to the model.json file you created
  • path\to\quickstart.pt with the path (relative or absolute) to the quickstart.pt file you created
  • path\to\output with the path (relative or absolute) to a directory where you would like the output to be saved

You will see the rendered output saved as a file in the output directory as quickstart.html.

Continue learning in the tutorial

You have now completed the quick-start for the command-line ZptSharp app! To continue learning about ZptSharp, please follow the ZptSharp tutorial, which teaches the ZPT language. Throughout the tutorial, changes to the model are performed in the model.json file. Throughout the tutorial, you will need to convert some C# constructs (to be added to the model) into JSON.