assign

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Synopsis

<#assign name=value>
or
<#assign name1=value1 name2=value2 ... nameN=valueN>
or
<#assign same as above... in namespacehash>
or
<#assign name>
  capture this
</#assign>
or
<#assign name in namespacehash>
  capture this
</#assign>

Where:

Description

With this you can create a new variable, or replace an existing variable. Note that only top-level variables can be created/replaced (i.e. you can't create/replace some_hash.subvar, but some_hash).

For more information about variables, read this: Template Author's Guide/Miscellaneous/Defining variables in the template

Example: variable seasons will store a sequence:

<#assign seasons = ["winter", "spring", "summer", "autumn"]>  

Example: Increments the numerical value stored in variable test:

<#assign test = test + 1>  

As a convenience feature, you can do more assignments with one assign tag. For example this will do the same as the two previous examples:

<#assign
  seasons = ["winter", "spring", "summer", "autumn"]
  test = test + 1
>  

If you know what namespaces are: assign directive creates variables in namespaces. Normally it creates the variable in the current namespace (i.e. in the namespace associated with the template where the tag is). However, if you use in namespacehash then you can create/replace a variable of another namespace than the current namespace. For example, here you create/replace variable bgColor of the namespace used for /mylib.ftl:

<#import "/mylib.ftl" as my>
<#assign bgColor="red" in my>  

An extreme usage of assign is when it captures the output generated between its start-tag and end-tag. That is, things that are printed between the tags will not be shown on the page, but will be stored in the variable. For example:

<#macro myMacro>foo</#macro>
<#assign x>
  <#list 1..3 as n>
    ${n} <@myMacro />
  </#list>
</#assign>
Number of words: ${x?word_list?size}
${x}  

will print:

Number of words: 6
    1 foo
    2 foo
    3 foo
   

Please note that you should not to use this to insert variables into strings:

<#assign x>Hello ${user}!</#assign> <#-- BAD PRACTICE! -->  

You should simply write:

<#assign x="Hello ${user}!">  
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