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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. 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.

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.
  • 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.

Documentation

Start with the documentation topics.

There’s also a dedicated search page (you need javascript for it to work). A generated API documentation is available as well.

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.

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.

Download

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-0.9.9.0-dev-4111.digests
tdi-0.9.9.0-dev-4111.tar.bz2: OK
tdi-0.9.9.0-dev-4111.tar.gz: OK
tdi-0.9.9.0-dev-4111.tar.lzma: OK
tdi-0.9.9.0-dev-4111.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-0.9.9.0-dev-4111.digests
gpg: Signature made Mon Jan  2 23:50:54 2012 CET 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 are no vendor packages available right now.

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:

  • Sebastian Dauß
  • Astrid Malo
  • Jens Michlo
  • Javier Rodriguez-Stegmaier
  • Roland Sommer
[1]The pronunciation came up while discussing TDI at the breakfast table. Once our little daughter picked it up and asked for her “teddy...?”. [2]
[2]Well, the joke is easier to understand, if you’re speaking German at your breakfast table.

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