What is the Blade Framework in JAVA?

The Blade Framework in JAVA is an open-source lightweight templating engine that is part of the broader framework called Lavarel. The framework is used to create complex web-based applications in JAVA. The Blade engine is extremely user friendly when it comes to language constructs and accessing other functionalities of the Lavarel framework. To make it more approachable to users and increase the productivity of the engine, Blade provides structures such as conditional statements and iterators. If you want to create a blade template, instead of using the ‘.php’ extension, all you need to do is change it to ‘.blade.php’. Blade allows users to create templates for all requirements including a master template. This template can then be extended on several enterprise applications if it fits the purpose.

Why should we use Blade?

As mentioned before, Blade has a very simplistic approach when it comes to syntax. It tries to keep it as simple as possible such that users of all competencies and language backgrounds can easily get a grasp of it. An example would be printing out the value of a variable.

For JAVA: System.out.println(variable)
For Blade: {{$variable}}

Similarly, for ternary operators, writing the following code is enough: {{$variable or ‘default value’}}.

Features of the Blade Framework

• As a lightweight MVC Framework, Blade is easy to code compared to other frameworks. It also has a robust pattern.
• Blade works on a modular basis. This means that you can cut up an application into modules and choose which one to work for. This process is useful for debugging.
• The framework provides comprehensive plug-in support, as well as configuration files, support namely JSON, properties, and coding files.
• Blade is compatible with JDK 1.6 and higher versions.

Advantages of Blade Framework

The biggest advantage of using Blade to develop applications is that it is simple and easy to understand. When you are writing huge volumes of code, it becomes imperative to keep the structure fluent and simple for other developers to be able to read it. Blade has successfully achieved it. Other than the structural aspect, Blade supports the REST style routing interface and does not have any invasive receptors in its architecture.

Blade Architecture

The Blade Architecture and workflow follows a straightforward pattern that can be divided into three components namely The Web Server, Middlewares, and WebHooks. The workflow is explained as follows:

1. A client sends in a request that is directly intercepted by the Web Server.
2. The role of the webserver is to relay the request to the Middlewares without opening or tampering with it.
3. Depending upon the request type, the Middlewares processes the request (optional) and/or passes it down to the WebHooks.
4. WebHooks thereafter processes the request (again optional) if required before sending it down to the Router Handle that us responsible for routing the response back to the client.
5. The Router Handle then follows the same path back up from the WebHooks to the Middlewares to send the response to the webserver. The web server displays the response to the user (client).

A Simple Blade Application

/*Following is the code for a simple Blade Application that will print out the words ‘Blade Successful’ as an output when run. We will be extending the Bootstrap class to perform this operation*/
public class SampleApp extends Bootstrap {
@Override
public void init() {}
public static void main (String args []) throws Exception {
//Creating a blade object
Blade blade = Blade.me();
blade.get(“/”).run(request, reponse) -> {
reponse.html(“<h1> Blade Successful </h1>”);
return null;
});
blade.app(SampleApp.class).listen(9001).start() ;
}
}

Output

When you run it, point your browser to the following URL: http://localhost:9001. The output will be as follows:

Blade Successful