Let's break down the concept of `for page in pages` in a more concrete manner, using a simple analogy and detailed examples to clarify its meaning.
### Analogy
Imagine you have a bookshelf with several books on it. Each book represents an item, and the entire bookshelf represents a collection of items. If you wanted to look at each book one by one, you would take each book off the shelf, examine it, and then put it back. This is similar to how a loop works in programming.
### Explanation
In programming, `for page in pages` is a loop that iterates over a collection called `pages`. Each individual item in `pages` is referred to as `page` during each iteration of the loop. Let's break this down with a concrete example in Python using Jinja2 (since it's more familiar to Python developers) and then translate it to Go templates.
### Jinja2 Example (Python Templating)
#### Python Code:
```python
from jinja2 import Template
# Data to be passed to the template
data = {
'pages': [
{'title': 'Home', 'content': 'Welcome to the homepage!'},
{'title': 'About', 'content': 'About us page content'},
{'title': 'Contact', 'content': 'Contact us here'}
]
}
# Template with a loop
template_str = """
Pages
{% for page in pages %}
-
{{ page.title }}
{{ page.content }}
{% endfor %}
"""
# Create a template object and render it with the data
template = Template(template_str)
rendered_html = template.render(pages=data['pages'])
print(rendered_html)
```
### Explanation of Jinja2 Example:
1. **Data**: We have a dictionary `data` with a key `pages` that contains a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary represents a page with a `title` and `content`.
2. **Template**: The template string contains HTML and Jinja2 syntax. The `{% for page in pages %}` loop iterates over each dictionary in `pages`.
3. **Rendering**: When the template is rendered with `data`, the loop generates HTML for each page, displaying its title and content.
### Rendered HTML Output:
```html
Pages
-
Home
Welcome to the homepage!
-
About
About us page content
-
Contact
Contact us here
```
### Go Template Example (Equivalent)
Now, let's translate the same example to Go templates.
#### Go Code:
```go
package main
import (
"html/template"
"os"
)
type Page struct {
Title string
Content string
}
func main() {
// Data to be passed to the template
pages := []Page{
{Title: "Home", Content: "Welcome to the homepage!"},
{Title: "About", Content: "About us page content"},
{Title: "Contact", Content: "Contact us here"},
}
// Template with a loop
const tmpl = `
Pages
{{ range . }}
-
{{ .Title }}
{{ .Content }}
{{ end }}
`
// Parse and execute the template
t := template.Must(template.New("example").Parse(tmpl))
err := t.Execute(os.Stdout, pages)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}
```
### Explanation of Go Template Example:
1. **Data**: We have a slice of `Page` structs. Each struct represents a page with a `Title` and `Content`.
2. **Template**: The template string contains HTML and Go template syntax. The `{{ range . }}` loop iterates over each `Page` in the `pages` slice.
3. **Rendering**: When the template is executed with `pages`, the loop generates HTML for each page, displaying its title and content.
### Conclusion
- `for page in pages` (in Python/Jinja2) or `{{ range . }}` (in Go templates) is a way to loop through a collection of items.
- Each iteration of the loop processes one item from the collection, allowing you to generate dynamic content based on each item's data.
By comparing the Jinja2 and Go template examples, you can see how the same concept of iterating over a collection is applied in different templating systems. This should help make the idea more concrete and understandable.