Contents
TopTEMPLATE TOOLKIT PLUGINS
TopThe following plugin modules are distributed with the Template Toolkit. Some of the plugins interface to external modules (detailed below) which should be downloaded from any CPAN site and installed before using the plugin.
Assert
Top
                          New in 2.20! The Assert plugin adds an assert virtual method that
                          you can use to catch undefined values.
                        
For example, consider this dotop:
[% user.name %]
                        
                          If user.name is an undefined value then TT will silently
                          ignore the fact and print nothing. If you USE the
                          assert plugin then you can add the assert
                          vmethod between the user and name elements,
                          like so:
                        
[% user.assert.name %]
                        
                          Now, if user.name is an undefined value, an exception will
                          be thrown:
                        
assert error - undefined value for name
CGI
TopThe CGI plugin is a wrapper around Lincoln Stein's CGI.pm module. The plugin is distributed with the Template Toolkit (see Template::Plugin::CGI) and the CGI module itself is distributed with recent versions Perl, or is available from CPAN.
[% USE CGI %] [% CGI.param('param_name') %] [% CGI.start_form %] [% CGI.popup_menu( Name => 'color', Values => [ 'Green', 'Brown' ] ) %] [% CGI.end_form %]
Datafile
TopProvides an interface to data stored in a plain text file in a simple delimited format. The first line in the file specifies field names which should be delimiter by any non-word character sequence. Subsequent lines define data using the same delimiter as in the first line. Blank lines and comments (lines starting '#') are ignored. See Template::Plugin::Datafile for further details.
/tmp/mydata:
# define names for each field id : email : name : tel # here's the data fred : fred@here.com : Fred Smith : 555-1234 bill : bill@here.com : Bill White : 555-5678
example:
[% USE userlist = datafile('/tmp/mydata') %] [% FOREACH user = userlist %] [% user.name %] ([% user.id %]) [% END %]
Date
Top
                          The Date plugin
                          provides an easy way to generate formatted time and date strings by
                          delegating to the POSIX
                          strftime() routine. See Template::Plugin::Date and
                          POSIX for further details.
                        
[% USE date %] [% date.format %] # current time/date File last modified: [% date.format(template.modtime) %]
Directory
TopThe Directory plugin provides a simple interface to a directory and the files within it. See Template::Plugin::Directory for further details.
[% USE dir = Directory('/tmp') %] [% FOREACH file = dir.files %] # all the plain files in the directory [% END %] [% FOREACH file = dir.dirs %] # all the sub-directories [% END %]
DBI
Top
                          The DBI plugin is no longer distributed as part of the
                          Template Toolkit (as of version 2.15). It is now available as a separate
                          Template::DBI
                          distribution from CPAN.
                        
Dumper
TopThe Dumper plugin provides an interface to the Data::Dumper module. See Template::Plugin::Dumper and Data::Dumper for futher details.
[% USE dumper(indent=0, pad="<br>") %] [% dumper.dump(myvar, yourvar) %]
File
TopThe File plugin provides a general abstraction for files and can be used to fetch information about specific files within a filesystem. See Template::Plugin::File for further details.
[% USE File('/tmp/foo.html') %] [% File.name %] # foo.html [% File.dir %] # /tmp [% File.mtime %] # modification time
Filter
TopThis module implements a base class plugin which can be subclassed to easily create your own modules that define and install new filters.
package MyOrg::Template::Plugin::MyFilter;
use Template::Plugin::Filter;
use base qw( Template::Plugin::Filter );
sub filter {
    my ($self, $text) = @_;
    # ...mungify $text...
    return $text;
}
                        Example of use:
# now load it... [% USE MyFilter %] # ...and use the returned object as a filter [% FILTER $MyFilter %] ... [% END %]
See Template::Plugin::Filter for further details.
Format
Top
                          The Format
                          plugin provides a simple way to format text according to a
                          printf()-like format. See Template::Plugin::Format
                          for further details.
                        
[% USE bold = format('<b>%s</b>') %] [% bold('Hello') %]
GD
Top
                          The GD plugins are no longer part of the core Template
                          Toolkit distribution. They are now available from CPAN in a separate Template::GD distribution.
                        
HTML
TopThe HTML plugin is very basic, implementing a few useful methods for generating HTML. It is likely to be extended in the future or integrated with a larger project to generate HTML elements in a generic way.
[% USE HTML %] [% HTML.escape("if (a < b && c > d) ..." %] [% HTML.attributes(border => 1, cellpadding => 2) %] [% HTML.element(table => { border => 1, cellpadding => 2 }) %]
See Template::Plugin::HTML for further details.
Iterator
Top
                          The Iterator plugin provides a way to create a Template::Iterator object to
                          iterate over a data set. An iterator is created automatically by the
                          FOREACH directive and is aliased to the loop
                          variable. This plugin allows an iterator to be explicitly created with a
                          given name, or the default plugin name, iterator. See Template::Plugin::Iterator for further details.
                        
[% USE iterator(list, args) %] [% FOREACH item = iterator %] [% '<ul>' IF iterator.first %] <li>[% item %] [% '</ul>' IF iterator.last %] [% END %]
Pod
TopThis plugin provides an interface to the Pod::POM module which parses POD documents into an internal object model which can then be traversed and presented through the Template Toolkit.
[% USE Pod(podfile) %] [% FOREACH head1 = Pod.head1; FOREACH head2 = head1/head2; ... END; END %]
Scalar
TopThe Template Toolkit calls user-defined subroutines and object methods using Perl's array context by default.
# TT2 calls object methods in array context by default
[% object.method %]
                        This plugin module provides a way for you to call subroutines and methods in scalar context.
[% USE scalar %] # force it to use scalar context [% object.scalar.method %] # also works with subroutine references [% scalar.my_sub_ref %]
String
TopThe String plugin implements an object-oriented interface for manipulating strings. See Template::Plugin::String for further details.
[% USE String 'Hello' %] [% String.append(' World') %] [% msg = String.new('Another string') %] [% msg.replace('string', 'text') %] The string "[% msg %]" is [% msg.length %] characters long.
Table
TopThe Table plugin allows you to format a list of data items into a virtual table by specifying a fixed number of rows or columns, with an optional overlap. See Template::Plugin::Table for further details.
[% USE table(list, rows=10, overlap=1) %] [% FOREACH item = table.col(3) %] [% item %] [% END %]
URL
TopThe URL plugin provides a simple way of contructing URLs from a base part and a variable set of parameters. See Template::Plugin::URL for further details.
[% USE mycgi = url('/cgi-bin/bar.pl', debug=1) %] [% mycgi %] # ==> /cgi/bin/bar.pl?debug=1 [% mycgi(mode='submit') %] # ==> /cgi/bin/bar.pl?mode=submit&debug=1
Wrap
TopThe Wrap plugin uses the Text::Wrap module to provide simple paragraph formatting. See Template::Plugin::Wrap and Text::Wrap for further details.
[% USE wrap %] [% wrap(mytext, 40, '* ', ' ') %] # use wrap sub [% mytext FILTER wrap(40) -%] # or wrap FILTER
                          The Text::Wrap module is available from CPAN:
                        
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/
XML
Top
                          The XML::DOM, XML::RSS,
                          XML::Simple and XML::XPath plugins are no
                          longer distributed with the Template Toolkit as of version 2.15
                        
They are now available in a separate Template::XML distribution.