z3c.pt 0.6.1

An implementation of the TAL template language.

Overview

The z3c.pt package provides an alternative implementation of the TAL template language including i18n. It also provides a simple text template class that allows expression interpolation.

Casual benchmarks pegs it 12x more performant than zope.pagetemplate.

In a nutshell:

• Templates are bytecode-compiled

• Only Python-expressions are supported

• Depends only on lxml

• Adds support for expression interpolation

• Limited support for CSS, Javascript and other non-XML documents

See the README.txt inside the package for instructions on usage.

Note: The METAL macro language is not supported.

Template and expression language

The template and expression language is based loosely on the TAL 1.4 specification*. Some notable changes:

1. Only Python-expressions are allowed. Expressions can have try-except fallbacks using the vertical bar syntax:

   tal:content=”<expression> | <first fallback> | <second fallback> | …”

2. Tuples are allowed in the tal:define statement:

   tal:define=”(a, b, c) [1, 2, 3]”

3. Generators are allowed in tal:repeat statements. Note that the repeat variable is not available in this case.

   tal:repeat=”i <some generator>”

4. Attribute-access to dictionary entries is allowed, e.g.

   dictionary.key

   can be used instead of dictionary['key'].

5. Expressions that return a callable are called.

6. Expression interpolation is allowed:

   <a href=”mailto:${context.email}”>${context.email}</a>

7. Attribute-values are always escaped; document expressions are never.

Development

If you want to use the code directly from trunk, provide z3c.pt==dev as your dependency.

http://svn.zope.org/z3c.pt/trunk#egg=z3c.pt-dev

Changelog

Version 0.6 - February 24, 2008

• Added support for text templates; these allow expression interpolation in non-XML documents like CSS stylesheets and javascript files.

Version 0.5 - February 23, 2008

• Expression interpolation implemented.

Version 0.4 - February 22, 2008

• Engine now uses cStringIO yielding a 2.5x performance improvement. Unicode is now handled correctly.

Version 0.3 - December 23, 2007

• Code optimization; bug fixing spree [malthe]

• Added ViewPageTemplateFile class [malthe]

• Added support for i18n [malthe]

• Engine rewrite; improved code generation abstractions [malthe]

Version 0.2 - December 5, 2007

• Major optimizations to the generated code [malthe]

Version 0.1 - December 3, 2007

• First public release [malthe]