Why is there no space after “Hello” in my Closure template?

Question

I am trying to teach myself Closure templates. I made a simple file simply.soy:

{namespace examples.simple}

/**
 * says hello to the world
 * @param? name Optional parameter specifying who you are greeting.
 */
{template .hiWorld}
  Hello
  {if $name}
   {$name}!
  {else}
   world!
  {/if}
{/template}

After I compile and call document.write(examples.simple.hiWorld();, however, the displayed string has no space between "Hello" and "world": Helloworld!

Why not?

Answer 1

Closure Templates handle line joining as follows:

Within the body of a template, you can indent the lines as much as you want because the template compiler removes all line terminators and whitespace at the beginning and end of lines, including spaces preceding a rest-of-line comment. The compiler completely removes empty lines that consist of only whitespace. Consecutive lines are joined according to the following heuristic: if the join location borders a template or HTML tag on either side, the lines are joined with no space. If the join location does not border a template or HTML tag on either side, the lines are joined with exactly one space.

To add a space in a Closure Templates where one is needed, use the special character command {sp}. In cases where an unwanted space is inserted, you may remove it using the command {nil}. For line joining examples, see features.soy.

simple.soy would become:

{namespace examples.simple}

/**
 * says hello to the world
 * @param? name Optional parameter specifying who you are greeting.
 */
{template .hiWorld}
  Hello{sp}
  {if $name}
   {$name}!
  {else}
   world!
  {/if}
{/template}