README

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===============================================================================

 Apache FreeMarker {version}

 For the latest version or to report bugs visit:

 http://freemarker.org/

===============================================================================

  DISCLAIMER

  Apache FreeMarker is an effort undergoing incubation at The Apache
  Software Foundation (ASF). Incubation is required of all newly accepted
  projects until a further review indicates that the infrastructure,
  communications, and decision making process have stabilized in a manner
  consistent with other successful ASF projects. While incubation status is
  not necessarily a reflection of the completeness or stability of the
  code, it does indicate that the project has yet to be fully endorsed by
  the ASF.


What is Apache FreeMarker?
--------------------------

FreeMarker is a "template engine"; a generic tool to generate text
output (anything from HTML to auto generated source code) based on
templates. It's a Java package, a class library for Java programmers.
It's not an application for end-users in itself, but something that
programmers can embed into their products. FreeMarker is designed to
be practical for the generation of HTML Web pages, particularly by
servlet-based applications following the MVC (Model View Controller)
pattern.


Licensing
---------

FreeMarker is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

See the LICENSE file for more details!


Documentation
-------------

Online: http://freemarker.org/docs/

Offline: The full documentation is available in the binary distribution
in the documentation/index.html directory.


Installing
----------

If you are using Maven, just add this dependency:

  <!--
  Attention: Be sure nothing pulls in an old dependency with groupId
  "freemarker" (without the "org."), because then you will end up with
  two freemarker.jar-s and unpredictable behavior on runtime!
  -->
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.freemarker</groupId>
    <artifactId>freemarker</artifactId>
    <version>{version}</version>
  </dependency>

Otherwise simply copy freemarker.jar to a location where your Java
application's ClassLoader will find it. For example, if you are using
FreeMarker in a web application, you probably want to put
freemarker.jar into the WEB-INF/lib directory of your web application.

FreeMarker has no required dependencies. It has several optional
dependencies, but usually you don't have to deal with them, because if
you are using an optional feature that's certainly because your
application already uses the related library.


Change log
----------

Online (for stable releases only):
http://freemarker.org/docs/app_versions.html

Offline:
In the binary release, open documentation/index.html, and you will find the
link.


Building
--------

First of all, if you haven't yet, download the source release, or check
out FreeMarker from the source code repository.

You need JDK 8(!), Apache Ant and Ivy to be installed. (As of this writing
it was tested with Ant 1.8.1 and Ivy 2.3.0.) Note that the ivy-<version>.jar
should be copied to your Ant home directory "lib" subfolder.

It's recommended to copy build.properties.sample into build.properties, and
edit its content to fit your system. (Although basic jar building should
succeeds without the build.properties file too.)

To build freemarker.jar, just issue "ant" in the project root
directory, and it should download all dependencies automatically and
build freemarker.jar.

If later you change the dependencies in ivy.xml, or otherwise want to
re-download some of them, it will not happen automatically anymore.
You have to issue "ant update-deps" for that.


Eclipse and other IDE setup
---------------------------

Below you find the step-by-step setup for Eclipse Mars.1. If you are using a
different version or an entierly different IDE, still read this, and try to
apply it to your development environment:

- Install Ant and Ivy, if you haven't yet; see earlier.
- From the command line, run `ant clean javacc ide-dependencies`. (Note that
  now the "ide-dependencies" and  "build/generated-sources" was created.)
- Start Eclipse
- You may prefer to start a new workspace (File -> "Switch workspace"), but
  it's optional.
- Window -> Preferences
  - General -> Workspace, set the text file encoding
    to "UTF-8". (Or, you can set the same later on project level instead.)
  - Java -> Code Style -> Formatter -> Import...
    Select src\ide-settings\Eclipse-Mars\Formatter-profile-FreeMarker.xml
    inside the FreeMarker project directory.
    This profile uses space-only indentation policy and 120 character line
    width, and formatting rules that are pretty much standard in modern Java.
  - Java -> Installed JRE-s:
    Ensure that you have JDK 6 installed, and that it was added to Eclipse.
    Note that it's not JRE, but JDK.
- Create new "Java Project" in Eclipse:
  - In the first window popping up:
    - Change the "location" to the directory of the FreeMarker project
    - Press "Next"
  - In the next window, you see the build path settings:
    - On "Source" tab, ensure that exactly these are marked as source
      directories (be careful, Eclipse doesn't auto-detect these well):
        build/generated-sources/java
        src/main/java
        src/main/resources
        src/test/java
        src/test/resources
    - On the "Libraries" tab:
      - Delete everyhing from there, except the "JRE System Library [...]"
      - Edit "JRE System Library [...]" to "Execution Environment" "JavaSE 1.6"
      - Add all jar-s that are directly under the "ide-dependencies" directory
        (use the "Add JARs..." and select all those files).
    - On the "Order and Export" tab find dom4j-*.jar, and send it to the
        bottom of the list (becase, an old org.jaxen is included inside
        dom4j-*.jar, which casues compilation errors if it wins over
        jaxen-*.jar).
   - Press "Finish"
- Eclipse will indicate many errors at this point; it's expected, read on.
- Project -> Properties -> Java Compiler
  - Set "Compiler Compliance Level" to "1.5" (you will have to uncheck
    "Use compliance from execution environment" for that)
  - In Errors/Warnings, check in "Enable project specific settings", then set
    "Forbidden reference (access rules)" from "Error" to "Warning".
- You will still have errors on these java files (because different java
  files depend on different versions of the same library, and Eclipse can't
  handle that). Exclude those java files from the Build Path (in the Package
  Explorer, right click on the problematic file -> "Build Path" -> "Exclude").
    _Jython20*.java
    _Jython22*.java
    _FreeMarkerPageContext2.java
    FreeMarkerJspFactory2.java
  Also, close these files if they are open. Now you shouldn't have any errors.
- At Project -> Properties -> Java Code Style -> Formatter, check in "Enable
  project specific settings", and then select "FreeMarker" as active profile.
- Right click on the project -> Run As -> JUnit Test
  It should run without problems (all green).
- It's highly recommened to use the Eclipse FindBugs plugin.
  - Install it from Eclipse Marketplace (3.0.1 as of this writing)
  - Window -> Preferences -> Java -> FindBugs:
    Set all bug marker ranks from Warning to Error. (For false alarms we add
    @SuppressFBWarnings(value = "...", justification = "...") annotations.)
  - Project -> Properties -> FindBugs -> [x] Run Automatically
  - There should 0 errors. But sometimes the plugin fails to take the
    @SuppressFBWarnings annotations into account; then use Project -> Clean.