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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T02:38:07+00:00

I am developing an iPhone application and I use HTML to display formatted text.

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I am developing an iPhone application and I use HTML to display formatted text.

I often display the same webpage, but with a different content. I would like to use a template HTML file, and then fill it with my different values.

I wonder if Objective-C has a template system similar to ERB in Ruby.

That would allow to do things like

Template:

<HTML>
  <HEAD>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    <H1>{{{title}}}</H1>
    <P>{{{content}}}</P>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

Objective-C (or what it may be in an ideal world)

Template* template = [[Template alloc] initWithFile:@"my_template.tpl"];
[template fillMarker:@"title" withContent:@"My Title"];
[template fillMarker:@"content" withContent:@"My text here"];
[template process];
NSString* result = [template result];
[template release];

And the result string would contain:

<HTML>
  <HEAD>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    <H1>My Title</H1>
    <P>My text here</P>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

The above example could be achieved with some text replacement, but that would be a pain to maintain.
I would also need something like loops inside templates. For instance, if I have multiple items to display, I would like to generate multiple divs.

Thanks for reading 🙂

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Have you considered using as template:

    <HTML>
  <HEAD>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    <H1>%@</H1>
    <P>%@</P>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

    And then:

    // just to get file name right
NSString* fn = 
    [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/my_template.tpl", 
              [[ NSBundle mainBundle ] resourcePath ]];
// template
NSError *error;
NSString* template = 
    [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:fn 
              encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:&error];
// result
NSString* result = 
    [NSString stringWithFormat:template, 
              @"MyTitle", 
              @"MyText"];

    I think it’s pretty much what you want.

    Of course you’ll have to add your template files as resources in the project.

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