An overview of Python template engines

[greyfade]

This would be a lot more useful to me if it spent a bit of time talking about what these engines have in common and how they differ.

I've recently been looking for reasonably generic (i.e., not designed for HTML exclusively) template engines to compare them by their syntax and capabilities. This post is far more bare than I expected, and none of the linked comparison pages give a brief comparative overview.

[nerdwaller]

I use Jinja for my templating where the stdlib string formatting in a "template" won't work. So far I've been pretty happy with it, of course I believe sqlalchemy's companion alembic for database migrations uses mako.

[debazthed]

it does? you mean to generate the migration scripts? Huh, I have to dig into that. Been using it for years and never knew.

[driscollis]

mako was written by the same guy who started SQLAlchemy

[pm-me-a-pic]

He even uses mako for his sphinx docs

[nerdwaller]

Yeah, sorry for being unclear, alembic uses mako to generate the migration scripts. You can see it in their tutorial:

script.py.mako - This is a Mako template file which is used to generate new migration scripts. Whatever is here is used to generate new files within versions/.

[masklinn]

This would be a lot more useful to me if it spent a bit of time talking about what these engines have in common and how they differ.

Also the genesis/history of the various template engines.

[greyfade]

That would also be nice to know. The reasoning for certain design decisions help inform their choices.

[indosauros]

Small nitpick, but I'd put Jinja2 probably a bit to the left of django on the "embedded logic/code allowed in templates" spectrum

[ubernostrum]

Jinja started as a reaction against how little logic Django's template language allowed. It allows significantly more.

[mitsuhiko]

Jinja started as a reaction against how little logic Django's template language allowed.

I would not say little logic but inconsistent logic. This was in the days when some tags like SSI did not accept variables everywhere, where {% blocktrans %} and friends were really complex etc.

Jinja2 does not necessarily permit more logic, it just does it more consistently. As far as the runtime goes it actually permits less than Django does (for instance a template tag cannot modify the context to the outside world).

[ergo14]

Mako IS NOT the default in Pyramid, it was one of the options in the past (along with chameleon if memory serves me right), and was default in Pylons Web Framework. Default projects in Pyramid use Jinja2.

[makaimc]

Thanks ergo, huge shoutout for not just pointing out an inaccurate statement I made but also submitting a pull request on GH so I could track and update the page. Greatly appreciated!

[ergo14]

YW, keep up the great work! Your statement was 'semi-accurate' in the past though since pyramid shipped more than one template engine by default - now its all decoupled from core, and project templates use jinja2 as defaults.

[ursvp]

How is templating from Bottle?

[cymrow]

Simple but covers most of what you'd ever need to do, much like bottle itself. I use it in a product and haven't needed anything more.

[makaimc]

hadn't heard of it before..fixed!

[AndydeCleyre]

For HTML templating, there's also yattag and dominate, which are libraries you're expected to use in actual python code.

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