Formal reference notation

In almost all cases you will use the shorthand notation for references, but in some cases the formal notation is required for correct processing.

Suppose you are creating a sentence on the fly where $direction was to be used as the base word in the noun of a sentence. The goal is to allow someone to choose the base word and produce one of the two following results: upside or downside. Using the shorthand notation would be inadequate for this task. Consider the following example:

$directionside.

This is ambiguous, and Template Engine assumes that $directionside, not $direction, is the identifier you mean to use. Finding no value for $directionside, it will return $directionside if running in non-strict reference mode.

Using formal notation can resolve this problem:

${direction}side.

Now Template Engine knows that $direction, not $directionside, is the reference. Formal notation is often useful when references are directly adjacent to text in a template.