Question

In a play framework 1.2.4 Controller, is it possible to get the contents of a template or tag as a String before output to the browser?

I want to be able to do this:

String json = renderAsString("/path/to/template.json", var1, var2);

//then use json as the body of a Play.WS request body.

Answer 1

The solution is based on the assumption that you are talking about PlayFramework 1.x

If you are using Groovy template engine:

Map<String, Object> args = ...
Template template = TemplateLoader.load("path/to/template.suffix");
String s = template.render(args);

And you have a shortcut way if you are using Rythm template engine:

String s = Rythm.render("path/to/template.suffix", param1, param3...);

Or you can also use named arguments:

Map<String, Object> args = ...
String s = Rythm.render("path/to/template.suffix", args);

Note the Groovy way also works for Rythm if your template file is put under app/rythm folder.