Templating
==========

There are almost as many Python templating systems as there are web
frameworks (and, indeed, it seems like many templating systems are
adopting web framework-like features). The following are the goals of `templetor`, which is the (codename of) templating system of web.py.


1. The templating system has to *look* decent. No ``<%#foo#%>`` crud.
2. Reuse Python terms and semantics as much as possible.
3. Expressive enough to do real computation.
4. Usable for any text language, not just HTML and XML.

And requirements for the implementation as well:

5. Sandboxable so that you can let untrusted users write templates.
6. Simple and fast implementation.

So here it is.

Variable substitution
---------------------

::

    Look, a $string.
    Hark, an ${arbitrary + expression}.
    Gawk, a $dictionary[key].function('argument').
    Cool, a $(limit)ing.

    Stop, \$money isn't evaluated.

We use basically the same semantics as (rejected) `PEP
215 <http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0215.html>`__. Variables can go
anywhere in a document.

Newline suppression
-------------------

::

    If you put a backslash \
    at the end of a line \
    (like these) \
    then there will be no newline.

renders as all one line.

Expressions
-----------

::

    Here are some expressions:

    $for var in iterator: I like $var!

    $if times > max:
        Stop! In the name of love.
    $else:
        Keep on, you can do it.

    That's all, folks.

All your old Python friends are here: ``if``, ``while``, ``for``,
``else``, ``break``, ``continue``, and ``pass`` also act as you'd
expect. (Obviously, you can't have variables named any of these.) The
Python code starts at the ``$`` and ends at the ``:``. The ``$`` has to
be at the beginning of the line, but that's not such a burden because of
newline suppression (above).

Also, we're very careful about spacing -- all the lines will render with
no spaces at the beginning. (Open question: what if you want spaces at
the beginning?) Also, a trailing space might break your code.

There are a couple changes from Python: ``for`` and ``while`` now take
an ``else`` clause that gets called if the loop is never evaluated.

(Possible feature to add: Django-style for loop variables.)

Comments
--------

::

    $# Here's where we hoodwink the folks at home:

    Please enter in your deets:

    CC: [       ]  $#this is the important one
    SSN: $#Social Security Number#$ [       ]

Comments start with ``$#`` and go to ``#$`` or the end of the line,
whichever is first.

Code
----

**NOTE: This feature has not been implemented in the current web.py
implementation of templetor.**

::

    Sometimes you just need to break out the Python.

    $ mapping = {
    $   'cool': ['nice', 'sweet', 'hot'],
    $   'suck': ['bad', 'evil', 'awful']
    $ }

    Isn't that $mapping[thought]?
    That's$ del mapping $ fine with me.

    $ complicatedfunc()

    $ for x in bugs:
        $ if bug.level == 'severe':
            Ooh, this one is bad.
            $ continue
        And there's $x...

**Body of loops have to be indented with exactly 4 spaces.**

Code begins with a ``$`` and a space and goes until the next ``$`` or
the end of the line, whichever comes first. Nothing ever gets output if
the first character after the ``$`` is a space (so ``complicatedfunc``
above doesn't write anything to the screen like it might without the
space).

Python integration
------------------

A template begins with a line like this:

::

    $def with (name, title, company='BigCo')

which declares that the template takes those arguments. (The ``with``
keyword is special, like ``def`` or ``if``.)

**Don't forget to put spaces in the definition**

The following *will not work*:

::

    $def with (name,title,company='BigCo')

Inside Python, the template looks like a function that takes these
arguments. It returns a storage object with the special property that
evaluating it as a string returns the value of the body of the template.
The elements in the storage object are the results of the ``def``\ s and
the ``set``\ s.

Perhaps an example will make this clearer. Here's a template, "entry":

::

    $def with (post)

    $var title: $post.title

    <p>$markdown(post.body)</p>

    <p class="byline">by $post.author</p>

Here's another; "base":

::

    $def with (self)
    <html><head>
      <title>$self.title</title>
    </head><body>
    <h1>$self.title</h1>

    $:self
    </body></html>

Now let's say we compile both from within Python, the first as
``entry``, the second as ``base``. Here's how we might use them:

::

    print base( entry( post ) )

``entry`` takes the argument post and returns an object whose string
value is a bit of HTML showing the post with its title in the property
``title``. ``base`` takes this object and places the title in the
appropriate place and displays the page itself in the body of the page.
The Python code prints out the result.

*Where did ``markdown`` come from? It wasn't passed as an argument.* You
can pass a list of functions and variables to the template compiler to
be made globally available to templates. *Why $:self?* See below

Here's an example:

::

    import template
    render = template.render('templates/')
    template.Template.globals['len'] = len

    print render.base(render.message('Hello, world!'))

The first line imports templetor. The second says that our templates are
in the directory ``templates/``. The third give all our templates access
to the ``len`` function. The fourth grabs the template ``message.html``,
passes it the argument ``'Hello, world!'``, passes the result of
rendering it to `mcitp <http://www.buyitcert.com/mcitp.html>`__ the
template ``base.html`` and prints the result. (If your templates don't
end in ``.html`` or ``.xml``, templetor will still find them, but it
won't do its automatic HTML-encoding.)

Turning Off Filter
------------------

By default ``template.render`` will use ``web.websafe`` filter to do
HTML-encoding. To turn it off, put a : after the $ as in:

::

    $:form.render()

Output from form.render() will be displayed as is.

::

    $:fooBar    $# fooBar = <span>lorem ipsum</span>

Output from variable in template will be displayed as is.

Including / nesting templates
-----------------------------

If you want to nest one template within another, you nest the
``render()`` calls, and then include the variable (unfiltered) in the
page. In your handler:

::

    print render.foo(render.bar())

or (to make things a little more clear):

::

    barhtml = render.bar()
    print render.foo(barhtml)

Then in the template ``foo.html``:

::

    $def with (bar)
    html goes here
    $:bar
    more html

This replaces the ``$:bar`` with the output of the ``render.bar()`` call
(which is why it must be ``$:``/unfiltered, so that you get un-encoded
HTML (unless you want something else of course)). You can pass variables
in, in the same way:

::

    print render.foo(render.bar(baz), qux)

In the template bar (``bar.html``):

::

    $def with (baz)
    bar stuff goes here + baz

In template foo (``foo.html``):

::

    $def with (bar, qux)
    html goes here
    $:bar
    Value of qux is $qux

Escaping
--------

web.py automatically escapes any variables used in templates, so that if for some reason name is set to a value containing some HTML, it will get properly escaped and appear as plain text. If you want to turn this off, write $:name instead of $name.

