How to configure Velocity Escape Tool with Spring Properties?

Question

I create e-mails from templates via Velocity in a Spring Web Application. Now I need to HTML escape SOME of the values. I found the Velocity Escape Tool. But I did not get the configuration working.

What I have tryed so fare is (spring applicationContext.xml):

<bean id="velocityEngine" class="org.springframework.ui.velocity.VelocityEngineFactoryBean">
    <property name="resourceLoaderPath" value="classpath:/velocity/emailTemplates" />
    <property name="preferFileSystemAccess" value="false" />
    <property name="overrideLogging" value="true" />
    <property name="velocityProperties">
        <util:properties>
            <prop key="input.encoding">UTF-8</prop>
            <prop key="output.encoding">UTF-8</prop>
            <prop key="tools.toolbox">application</prop>
            <prop key="tools.application.esc">org.apache.velocity.tools.generic.EscapeTool</prop>
        </util:properties>
    </property>
</bean>

Template (htmlEscapeTest.vm):

with escape: $esc.html($needEscape)

TestCase:

@Test
public void testHtmlEscapingSupport() {

    final String needEscape = "<test>";

    ModelMap model = new ModelMap();
    model.addAttribute("needEscape", needEscape);
    String result = VelocityEngineUtils.mergeTemplateIntoString(velocityEngine, HTML_ESCAPING_TEMPLATE_FILE, model);
    assertThat(result, StringContains.containsString("&lt;test&gt;"));
}

But the Test failed, ...got: "with escape: $esc.html($needEscape)"

Can anybody give me a hint what I am doing wrong?

If I add new EscapeTool() explicite in the test:

VelocityContext velocityContext = new VelocityContext(model);
velocityContext.put("esc", new EscapeTool());
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
velocityEngine.mergeTemplate(HTML_ESCAPING_TEMPLATE_FILE, velocityContext, writer);
String result = writer.toString();

then it is working. But as far as I understand the documentation, the tools should be configured once in the properties file.

I am using Velocity Engine 1.7 and Velocity Tools 2.0.

Generally it's been my experience that when you want to invoke velocity directly, then you have to set up the context manually. Would you provide a link to the documentation in question? — jtoberon, Jan 03 '12 at 14:49
@jtoberon: http://velocity.apache.org/tools/devel/config.properties.html and http://velocity.apache.org/tools/devel/config.html — Ralph, Jan 03 '12 at 14:53
What version of Velocity are you using? Your original Escape Tools link was to 1.4, and these links are to 2.0. — jtoberon, Jan 03 '12 at 15:13
@jtoberon: Velociti Engine 1.7 and Velociti Tools 2.0. What do you mean by "Your original Escape Tools like"? (I belive both links from the comment above are for version 2.0) — Ralph, Jan 03 '12 at 15:17
The link in the third sentence of your original question: http://velocity.apache.org/tools/releases/1.4/generic/EscapeTool.html. Apologies that this wasn't clear. I vaguely remember having a similar problem a while ago, so I'll post what I remember as an Answer in case it's helpful. — jtoberon, Jan 03 '12 at 15:19
@jtoberon: sorry for the missleading link, I have corrected them. — Ralph, Jan 03 '12 at 15:22

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 28 '14 at 07:35

You can not configure the Tools directly in the VelocityEngine. What you do instead, is that when you use the VelocityEngineUtils that you pass any Tools within the model map:

ModelMap model = new ModelMap();
model.put("esc", new EscapeTool());
VelocityEngineUtils.mergeTemplateIntoString(
                velocityEngine, "template.vm", "UTF-8", model)

Or if you use the VelocityEngine directly you could do:

VelocityContext velocityContext = new VelocityContext(model);
velocityEngine.mergeTemplate(templateLocation, encoding, velocityContext, writer);

jtoberon · Answer 2 · 2012-01-03T15:51:13.947

3

Warning: I'm basing this on somewhat vague memories from a while ago. Mileage may vary.

Some of the Velocity documentation should be read from the perspective of "how do I use this in a VelocityView?" If you want to use the same features directly from java code, then you need to change a few details. In this case, I believe that you're not creating the Context properly. Try to follow the standalone example here, making sure that you "ask [the ToolManager] to create a context for you":

ToolManager manager = ...
Context context = manager.createContext();

Something similar probably is done under the covers for you if you use VelocityView.

edited Jan 03 '12 at 15:51

answered Jan 03 '12 at 15:39

jtoberon

8,706
1
35
48

@jtoberon I've run into similar issues. My understanding was that `VelocityEngineFactoryBean` handles some of this, but I'm not super clear on how much. – Dan Jan 03 '12 at 16:44
Hmm that would make sense for Spring in particular, and he said he's using Spring. And yet his example doesn't work. Figuring this out might require stepping through the failing test in a debugger to check exactly what's in the context when `VelocityEngineUtils` runs. – jtoberon Jan 03 '12 at 17:00

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 17 '14 at 04:03

Here's some code that I just got working. I found the standard tools are set up automatically by the ToolManager.

@Autowired
private VelocityEngine velocityEngine;

public void createHtml(String templateLocation, Map<String, Object> model) throws Exception {
  ToolManager toolManager = new ToolManager();
  ToolContext toolContext = toolManager.createContext();
  VelocityContext velocityContext = new VelocityContext(model, toolContext);
  StringWriter resultWriter = new StringWriter();
  velocityEngine.mergeTemplate(templateLocation, "UTF-8", velocityContext, resultWriter);
  String html = resultWriter.toString();
  // use the HTML here
}

And my template has this

<p>Dear $esc.html($customer.firstname)</p>

ashish · Answer 4 · 2016-02-15T15:41:47.743

0

Add velocity tool maven dependency in pom or add jar in class path.
Add escape tool object in velocity context.

[ context.put("escapeTool",new EscapeTool()) ]
Use escapeTool in template.

[ $escapeTool.xml(value_to_be_escaped) ]

edited Feb 15 '16 at 15:41

answered Feb 15 '16 at 14:59

ashish

206
2
9

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 12 '16 at 08:20

change this:

<property name="velocityProperties">
    <util:properties>
        <prop key="input.encoding">UTF-8</prop>
        <prop key="output.encoding">UTF-8</prop>
        <prop key="tools.toolbox">application</prop>
        <prop key="tools.application.esc">org.apache.velocity.tools.generic.EscapeTool</prop>
    </util:properties>
</property>

to:

<property name="velocityProperties">
            <value>
                input.encoding=UTF-8
                output.encoding=UTF-8
                tools.toolbox=application
                tools.application.esc=org.apache.velocity.tools.generic.EscapeTool
            </value>
        </property>

How to configure Velocity Escape Tool with Spring Properties?

5 Answers5

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