Placeholders and Nesting

Named placeholders

var person = new {FirstName = "John", LastName = "Long"}, Address = new {City = "London"}

string.Format references all args by index:
string.Format("{0} {1}", person.FirstName, person.LastName)

Smart.Format takes this a step further, and lets you use named placeholders instead:
Smart.Format("{FirstName} {LastName}", person)

In fact, Smart.Format supports several kinds of expressions (parameterless methods):

Smart.Format("{FirstName.ToUpper} {LastName.ToLower}", person)

Nesting

var data = new {Person = new {FirstName = "John", LastName = "Long"}, Address = new {City = "London"}};

In SmartFormat, you can use nesting to avoid repetition, such as:

// This is necessary here to avoid undesired trailing blanks:
// }}} are now considered as 3 different closing braces
Smart.Default.Parser.UseAlternativeEscapeChar();

Smart.Format("{Person:{Address:City: {City}, Name: {FirstName}}}", data)
// result: "City: London, Name: John"

Nesting is often used with conditionals, plurals, and lists:

var data = new {People = new List<object> {new {Name = "Name 1", Age = 20}}};
Smart.Format("There {People.Count:is a person.|are {} people.}", data);
// result: "There is a person"

Nested Scope

When using nested placeholders, it is necessary to understand the scope that Reflection will use. A nested placeholder always starts off with the scope of the item that contains it.

The root scope for a template is arg0, meaning that {User.Address} is equivalent to data.User.Address.
Within the nested area, however, the "scope" has changed to User.Address, so nested expressions like {Street} are evaluated against User.Address.
To illustrate this, the following are all equivalent:
{User.Name} {User.Address.City} {User.Address.State} {User.Name} {User.Address:{City} {State}} {User:{Name} {Address:{City} {State}}}

Within any nested scope, you still have access to the outer scopes. For example:
{User.Address:{User.Name} {City} {State}}
Here, {User.Name}, which is in the root scope, is still accessible from within the nested User.Address scope.