Is there a native templating system for plain text files in Python?
PythonStringTemplatesPython Problem Overview
I am looking for either technique or templating system for Python for formatting output to simple text. What I require is that it will be able to iterate through multiple lists or dicts. It would be nice if I would be able to define template into separate file (like output.templ) instead of hardcoding it into source code.
As simple example what I want to achieve, we have variables title, subtitle and list
title = 'foo'
subtitle = 'bar'
list = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday']
And running throught a template, output would look like this:
Foo
Bar
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
How to do this? Thank you.
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
You can use the standard library string an its Template class.
Having a file foo.txt:
$title
$subtitle
$list
And the processing of the file (example.py):
from string import Template
d = {
'title': 'This is the title',
'subtitle': 'And this is the subtitle',
'list': '\n'.join(['first', 'second', 'third'])
}
with open('foo.txt', 'r') as f:
src = Template(f.read())
result = src.substitute(d)
print(result)
Then run it:
$ python example.py
This is the title
And this is the subtitle
first
second
third
Solution 2 - Python
If your prefer to use something shipped with the standard library, take a look at the format string syntax. By default it is not able to format lists like in your output example, but you can handle this with a custom Formatter which overrides the convert_field method.
Supposed your custom formatter cf uses the conversion code l to format lists, this should produce your given example output:
cf.format("{title}\n{subtitle}\n\n{list!l}", title=title, subtitle=sibtitle, list=list)
Alternatively you could preformat your list using "\n".join(list) and then pass this to your normal template string.
Solution 3 - Python
There are quite a number of template engines for python: Jinja, Cheetah, Genshi etc. You won't make a mistake with any of them.
Solution 4 - Python
I don't know if it is simple, but Cheetah might be of help.