Introduction

Templatelite is a lightweight templating module which is specifically designed to enable code creation as well as creation of other forms of data.

The templates are based on jinja templating language with a the exception that templalite does not support blocks, and does not support template extending; i.e. the ability for one template to override one or more blocks in another template.

templatelite supports a python like language within the template :

• for loops with multiple target variables, and supporting break and continue and else
• if conditional with elif and else

In general the templating process works as follows :

• Create an instance of the Renderer class, using your template either from a string or a file
• Use one of the methods of the class to add data to the template, the data can be created from a dictionary, multiple key word arguments or json data. The process of adding data to the template is termed rendering, and the data used to render the template is called the context

Access to Data

Within the templating language there is support for the display of data from the conex, using Context Variables (i.e. variable names surrounded by {{ & }} (as in the example below).

{{ name }}

When this template is rendered using a dictionary with a key of name, the output will be the template with {{ name }} replaced with the value in the dictionary for that key. See Context Variables for more details.

Control Structures

As well as accessing data from the context the templating language supports simple looping, and conditional branching through template directives; Python like commands surrounded by {% & %} as in the examples below.

Loops

Tempalite supports for loops which allow for iteration around context data :

{% for person in people %}
    {{ person }}
{% endfor %}

For full details of the for loop see For Loops. The templatelite module does not have while loops.

Conditional Branching

Tempalite supports if statements so that your template can implement ‘decisions’ based on data.

{% if person == 'Elizabeth Windsor'  %}
     Her Majest Queen Elizabeth
{% else %}
    A commoner
{% endif %}

For full details of the if directive see If Conditions.

Comments

Comments can be added to templates by surrounded your comment by {# & #}. In complex templates these comments can be useful in understanding your own templates. They are ignored entirely :

This is a {# This is a comment #}message

Will be rendered as :

This is a message