Template Data Interface (TDI)

TDI (/ʹtedɪ/ [1]) is a markup templating system written in python with (optional but recommended) speedup code written in C.

Unlike most templating systems TDI does not invent its own language to provide functionality [2]. Instead you simply mark the nodes you want to manipulate within the template document. The template is parsed and the marked nodes are presented to your python code, where they can be modified in any way you want.

TDI is currently available for python2 versions only (starting with python 2.4). Python 3 is not supported yet. The following alternative implementations are supported:

• PyPy (1.9, 2.0) (Python only)
• Jython (2.5, 2.7) (Python only)

Documentation

• Documentation Topics
• Example Index
• Documentation Search (needs javascript)
• API Documentation (generated)

Kess held an introductory talk about TDI at PyCon DE 2011, which is available on youtube (German, about 30 minutes).

Development Status

TDI has proven its performance and stability in high load production environments, which means, it works and it’s stable. There are still some kinks to solve and a few missing minor features to add until TDI reaches version 1.0. So, development wise it’s effectively a beta release right now.

Download

Change Log

CHANGES file

Source Packages

Current Stable Version

• tdi-0.9.9.7.tar.lzma
• tdi-0.9.9.7.tar.bz2
• tdi-0.9.9.7.tar.gz
• tdi-0.9.9.7.zip
• tdi-0.9.9.7.digests

Integrity Check

There are hashes (MD5, SHA1 and SHA256) of the download packages stored in the digests file. In order to check the integrity of the downloaded file, use a tool like md5sum (or sha1sum, sha256sum accordingly), e.g.:

$ md5sum -c tdi-0.9.9.7.digests
tdi-0.9.9.7.tar.bz2: OK
tdi-0.9.9.7.tar.gz: OK
tdi-0.9.9.7.tar.lzma: OK
tdi-0.9.9.7.zip: OK

In order to check the integrity of the digest file itself, you can check the PGP signature of that file. The file is signed by André Malo, Key-ID 0x8103A37E:

$ gpg --verify tdi-0.9.9.7.digests
gpg: Signature made Sun May 12 15:08:56 2013 CEST using DSA key ID 8103A37E
gpg: Good signature from "Andre Malo <nd@apache.org>"
gpg:                 aka "Andr\xe9\x20Malo <nd@perlig.de>"
gpg:                 aka "Andre Malo <ndparker@gmx.net>"

Vendor Packages

There’s a Gentoo Linux Ebuild available.

Get Informed About New Releases

If you want to get informed about new releases of the TDI, you may use the subscription service provided by freecode.com.

Rationale, Advocacy, Key Features

Here is the short variant why you should consider reading on:

TDI is pure, simple, fast and powerful.

And here’s a bit more (for the long variant have a look at the documentation):

Pure

• Template and Logic are strictly separated. TDI is the bridge between template and rendering logic.
• There is no templating language at all, just your markup language (e.g. HTML) and python. (There’s a markup language for plain text templates, though).
• TDI is non-intrusive - it blends in, both on template and python side.

Simple

• TDI has a steep learning curve. It’s easy to learn and easy to master.
• Knowing about your programming language (Python) and knowing about your template language (like HTML) is entirely sufficient.
• You can even use your usual tools to document and validate your code (like pylint, epydoc or an HTML validator).
• TDI escapes your content automatically - you are safe by default.
• TDI comes as a stand-alone package. Don’t worry about dependencies.

Fast

• Use TDI for rapid development. It’s easy to parallelize the work on layout and logic. You can even use mock-ups as templates.
• TDI runs with ludicrous speed.
• Pre-rendering the less dynamic parts makes it even faster.

Powerful

• Semantically partition your code both on template and logic side using overlays and scopes.
• Partial rendering is supported (useful for dynamic web sites).
• Process your templates during loading time with parser filters.
• TDI is unicode aware and automatically emits the desired encoding.
• TDI is designed to be highly customizable and extendable. Nearly every component can be modified or replaced.

License

TDI is available under the terms and conditions of the “Apache License, Version 2.0.” You’ll find the detailed licensing terms in the root directory of the source distribution package or online at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.

Author Information

TDI was written and is maintained by André Malo.

Acknowledgements

First of all I’d like to thank the author of HTMLTemplate. At the time I started experimenting with document tree based template systems, HTMLTemplate was short-listed. However, it had a different license back then, which was unacceptable for my purposes and also missing some features, so TDI was grown in the first place.

Various people helped developing and improving TDI itself. They are listed in alphabetical order:

• Lumes
• Sebastian Dauß
• Astrid ‘Kess’ Malo
• Jens Michlo
• Javier ‘Jay’ Rodriguez-Stegmaier
• Roland Sommer

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[1]	The pronunciation came up while discussing TDI at the breakfast table. Once our little daughter picked it up and asked for her “teddy...?”. [3]

[2]	It does invent some markup, though. Especially for plain text templates, because they naturally do not provide their own markup system.

[3]	Well, the joke is easier to understand, if you’re speaking German at your breakfast table.