---
tags:
  - templates
---

# kumo.string.eval_template

```lua
kumo.string.eval_template(NAME, SOURCE, CONTEXT, OPT_DIALECT)
```

{{since('2025.03.19-1d3f1f67')}}

Evaluates a minijinja template.

The parameters are:

* `NAME` - the nominal "file name" for the template. No actual file I/O is
  performed; this parameter tells the template engine what the filename would
  have been if it were loaded from disk. The filename is used to decide what
  strategy should be used for automatic output escaping.  For example, if the
  name ends with `.json` or `.html` then appropriate json or html entity
  escaping will automatically be applied to the output.
* `SOURCE` - the template source code. This must follow the [template syntax](../template/index.md).
* `CONTEXT` - an object that defines the variables that are available to the template engine.

```lua
-- This will print `"John"`
print(
  kumo.string.eval_template('example.json', [[{{name}}]], { name = 'John' })
)
```


```lua
local kumo = require 'kumo'

local log_record = kumo.serde.json_parse [=[
{
    "type": "Delivery",
    "id": "1d98076abbbc11ed940250ebf67f93bd",
    "sender": "user@sender.example.com",
    "recipient": "user@recipient.example.com",
    "queue": "campaign:tenant@domain",
    "site": "source2->(alt1|alt2|alt3|alt4)?.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com.",
    "size": 1047,
    "response": {
        "code": 250,
        "enhanced_code": {
            "class": 2,
            "subject": 0,
            "detail": 0
        },
        "content": "OK ids=8a5475ccbbc611eda12250ebf67f93bd",
        "command": "."
    },
    "peer_address": {
        "name": "gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com.",
        "addr": "142.251.2.27"
    },
    "timestamp": 1678069691,
    "created": 1678069691,
    "num_attempts": 0,
    "bounce_classification": "Uncategorized",
    "egress_pool": "pool0",
    "egress_source": "source2",
    "source_address": {
        "address": "10.0.0.1:53210",
        "protocol": "socks5",
        "server": "192.168.1.1:5000"
    },
    "feedback_report": null,
    "meta": {},
    "headers": {},
    "delivery_protocol": "ESMTP",
    "reception_protocol": "ESMTP",
    "bogus": null,
    "nodeid": "557f3ad4-2c8c-11ee-976e-782d7e12e173",
    "tls_cipher": "TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384",
    "tls_protocol_version": "TLSv1.3",
    "tls_peer_subject_name": ["C=US","ST=CA","L=SanFrancisco","O=Fort-Funston",
                              "OU=MyOrganizationalUnit","CN=do.havedane.net",
                              "name=EasyRSA","emailAddress=me@myhost.mydomain"],
    "session_id": "9bcd689e-23d9-41b7-a015-63a1382f8b57"
}
]=]

print(kumo.string.eval_template(
  'log.json',
  [[{
{%- for key, value in log_record | items | reject("none") -%}
{{key}}: {{value }}
{%- if not loop.last %},{% endif %}
{%- endfor -%}
}
]],
  { log_record = log_record }
))
```

## Template Dialect

{{since('2025.12.02-67ee9e96')}}

It is now possible to specify which template engine will be
used for template expansion via the `OPT_DIALECT` parameter.
It can have one of the following values:

 * `Jinja` - this is the implied default.  The Mini Jinja
   template dialect will be parsed and evaluated.
 * `Static` - The content is treated as a static string and
   no template expansion will be performed
 * `Handlebars` - The content will be evaluated by a handlebars
   compatible template engine.