Directives

The Folio grammar reserves the @ prefix for directives. Directives are a future extension point; today, the same outcomes are handled through elements and attributes.

What Is Reserved?

A directive starts with @ and has a name followed by an optional block or arguments:

@import "shared/components.folio"

This syntax is recognized by the lexer and parser, but the runtime currently treats directives as no-ops.

What to Use Today

Page chrome

Use pageheader and pagefooter elements instead of @header or @footer:

pageheader {
  text "Acme Corporation"
}

pagefooter {
  pagenum(format="Page {page} / {pages}", size=8)
}

page {
  heading "Document"
}

Styling

Apply styles with inline attributes on elements instead of a global @style block:

column(padding=20, margin=10, background="#f8fafc") {
  heading(color="#1e293b", fontSize=18) "Title"
  text(color="#475569", fontSize=11) "Body copy"
}

Imports and partials

At this stage, Folio does not support @import or @include. You can compose templates from PHP by loading strings and concatenating them, or by rendering multiple templates and merging the resulting Pdf instances in your application code.

Future Directives

Planned directives include @import for template composition and @include for reusable partials. When they land, they will compile to the same native PHP closures as the rest of the language.