[chef] including erubis fragments within a template

[Bryan Berry < >]

Dear Chefs,

I work on almost basis with the Enterprise Java container known as JBoss AS 7. JBoss's main configuration file, standalone-full.xml,  is a whopping 553 lines long. While it is very long, it actually quite cleanly structured, especially when compared to something like sendmail.cf

Templating such a large file is a mega PITA. JBoss AS 7 is nicely componentized so that you can easily turn on and off modules. This process would be a billion times easier and more readable if I could include fragments within and erubis template like this:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<server xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:1.2">

    <extensions>

         <% if @infinispan -%>

        <extension module="org.jboss.as.clustering.infinispan"/>

        <% end -%>

        <extension module="org.jboss.as.web"/>

         <% if @webservices -%>

        <extension module="org.jboss.as.webservices"/>

        <% end -%>

        <extension module="org.jboss.as.weld"/>

    </extensions>

     <% if @infinispan 

               include_template "infinispan.xml.erb"

     end -%>

     <% if @webservices

               include_template "webservices.xml.erb"

     end -%>

   <socket-binding-group name="standard-sockets" >

    ......

   </socket-binding-group>

</server>

As you can see, this is far more readable than adding complex logic to already large file

Is this at all feasible currently in Chef? It would make life a lot easier for me