dhaml

dhaml is a better alternative to YAML templating. It allows Dhall expressions to be embedded within YAML documents using the !dhall tag and it will always substitute the expression with another valid YAML value. This has several benefits over traditional YAML templating approaches:

• Resistant to injection attacks - Dhall expressions are always substituted with a valid YAML value or the program will return a non-zero exit code. There's also no need to manually escape or indent the output of an expression.
• Type safety - Dhall expressions are statically typed. This allows type annotations to be used to ensure that values match the expected type.
• Import resolution - Dhall expressions can be imported from local files or from a URL. This allows complex expressions to be moved into dedicated .dhall files or turned into a library.

Releases

• Statically linked executables are available from the releases page
• Docker images are published to robbiemcmichael/dhaml on Docker Hub

The Docker release is a scratch image containing only the executable. It will likely be more useful to copy the executable into a new Docker image along with any other tools needed, for example:

FROM alpine:latest

COPY --from=dhallhaskell/dhall:1.30.0 /bin/dhall /bin/
COPY --from=robbiemcmichael/dhaml:0.3.0 /bin/dhaml /bin/

Usage

Usage: dhaml FILE [-i|--input]

Available options:
  FILE                     YAML file containing Dhall expressions
  -i,--input               Bind the expression from stdin to x
  -h,--help                Show this help text

Worked example

Start with an input file containing a Dhall value:

$ cat input.dhall

{ string = "foo"
, number = 2
, function = \(x : Natural) -> x*x : Natural
}

Use the !dhall tag to embed Dhall expressions. The input expression from input.dhall will be bound to the variable x which may then be used in subsequent expressions:

$ cat template.yaml

config:
  string: !dhall x.string
  number: !dhall x.function (x.number + 2)
  record: !dhall |
    { a = "abc"
    , b = True
    }
  source: !dhall ./input.dhall as Text

Evaluate all Dhall expressions in the YAML file with dhaml:

$ dhaml template.yaml -i <<< ./input.dhall

config:
  string: foo
  number: 16
  record:
    a: abc
    b: true
  source: |
    { string = "foo"
    , number = 2
    , function = \(x : Natural) -> x*x : Natural
    }