Looking for very light weight template library (not framework)

[Carl Banks]

On Mar 6, 8:56 pm, "Malcolm Greene" <pyt... at bdurham.com> wrote:
> New to Python and looking for a template library that allows Python
> expressions embedded in strings to be evaluated in place. In other words
> something more powerful than the basic "%(variable)s" or "$variable"
> (Template) capabilities.
>
> I know that some of the web frameworks support this type of template
> capability but I don't need a web framework, just a library that
> supports embedded expression evaluation.
>
> Use case:
>
> myOutput = """\
>
> The total cost is {{invoice.total}}.
>
> This order will be shipped to {{invoice.contact}} at the following
> address:
>
> {{invoice.address}}
>
> This order was generated at {{some date/time expression}}
> """
>
> Any suggestions appreciated.


You could do something like this with a single function.  For
instance:


import re

def apply_template(text,env):
    def eval_in_env(m):
        return str(eval(m.group(1),env))
    return re.sub(r"{{(.*?)}}",eval_in_env,text)


Where env is a dict with the variables you want to evaluate (locals()
could be a good choice for this).

Standard warning about usage of eval: don't use this with untrusted
input or Bad Things can happen.


Carl Banks