TAL Reference

The Template Attribute Language (TAL) standard is an attribute language used to create dynamic templates. It allows elements of a document to be replaced, repeated, or omitted.

Implementation Note

In this documentation, you will occasionally see boxes like this one. They contain extra information specific to one or more implementations of Page Templates.

Note

When this document refers to the “page template implementation,”, “ZPT implementation” or the “implementation”, it means the software that parses and renders page templates to produce output. This could be a framework like Zope, or it could a separate library like zope.pagetemplate. For more information, see Page Template Implementations.

Introduction

The statements of TAL are XML attributes from the TAL namespace. These attributes can be applied to an XML or HTML document in order to make it act as a template.

A TAL statement has a name (the attribute name) and a body (the attribute value). For example, an content statement might look like:

tal:content="string:Hello"

The element on which a statement is defined is its statement element. Most TAL statements require expressions, but the syntax and semantics of these expressions are not part of TAL. TALES is recommended for this purpose.

TAL Namespace

The TAL namespace URI and recommended alias are currently defined as:

xmlns:tal="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/tal"

This is not a URL, but merely a unique identifier. Do not expect a browser to resolve it successfully.

Implementations should not require an XML namespace declaration when creating templates with a content-type of text/html. However, they should require an XML namespace declaration for all other content-types.

TAL Statements

These are the tal statements:

tal:attributes
dynamically change element attributes.
tal:define
define variables.
tal:condition
test conditions.
tal:content
replace the content of an element.
tal:omit-tag
remove an element, leaving the content of the element.
tal:on-error
handle errors.
tal:repeat
repeat an element.
tal:replace
replace the content of an element and remove the element leaving the content.

Expressions used in statements may return values of any type, although most statements will only accept strings, or will convert values into a string representation. The expression language must define a value named nothing that is not a string. In particular, this value is useful for deleting elements or attributes.

Order of Operations

When there is only one TAL statement per element, the order in which they are executed is simple. Starting with the root element, each element’s statements are executed, then each of its child elements is visited, in order, to do the same.

Any combination of statements may appear on the same elements, except that the content and replace statements may not appear together.

Due to the fact that TAL sees statements as XML attributes, even in HTML documents, it cannot use the order in which statements are written in the tag to determine the order in which they are executed. TAL must also forbid multiples of the same kind of statement on a single element, so it is sufficient to arrange the kinds of statement in a precedence list.

When an element has multiple statements, they are executed in this order:

  1. define
  2. condition
  3. repeat
  4. content or replace
  5. attributes
  6. omit-tag

Since the on-error statement is only invoked when an error occurs, it does not appear in the list.

It may not be apparent that there needs to be an ordering. The reason that there must be one is that TAL is XML based. The XML specification specifically states that XML processors are free to rewrite the terms. In particular, you cannot assume that attributes of an XML statement will be processed in the order written, particularly if there is another preprocessor involved. To avoid needless proliferation of tags, and still permit unambiguous execution of complex TAL, a precedence order was chosen according to the following rationale.

The reasoning behind this ordering goes like this: You often want to set up variables for use in other statements, so define comes first. The very next thing to do is decide whether this element will be included at all, so condition is next; since the condition may depend on variables you just set, it comes after define. It is valuable be able to replace various parts of an element with different values on each iteration of a repeat, so repeat is next. It makes no sense to replace attributes and then throw them away, so attributes is last. The remaining statements clash, because they each replace or edit the statement element.

attributes: Replace element attributes

Syntax

tal:attributes syntax:

argument             ::= attribute_statement [';' attribute_statement]*
attribute_statement  ::= attribute_name expression
attribute_name       ::= [namespace-prefix ':'] Name
namespace-prefix     ::= Name

Note: If you want to include a semi-colon (;) in an ``expression``, it must be escaped by doubling it (;;).

Description

The tal:attributes statement replaces the value of an attribute (or creates an attribute) with a dynamic value. You can qualify an attribute name with a namespace prefix, for example:

html:table

if you are generating an XML document with multiple namespaces. The value of each expression is converted to a string, if necessary.

If the expression associated with an attribute assignment evaluates to nothing, then that attribute is deleted from the statement element. If the expression evaluates to default, then that attribute is left unchanged. Each attribute assignment is independent, so attributes may be assigned in the same statement in which some attributes are deleted and others are left alone.

If you use tal:attributes on an element with an active tal:replace command, the tal:attributes statement is ignored.

If you use tal:attributes on an element with a tal:repeat statement, the replacement is made on each repetition of the element, and the replacement expression is evaluated fresh for each repetition.

Examples

Replacing a link:

<a href="/sample/link.html"
   tal:attributes="href context/sub/absolute_url">

Replacing two attributes:

<textarea
  rows="80" cols="20"
  tal:attributes="rows request/rows;cols request/cols">

condition: Conditionally insert or remove an element

Syntax

tal:condition syntax:

argument ::= expression

Description

The tal:condition statement includes the statement element in the template only if the condition is met, and omits it otherwise. If its expression evaluates to a true value, then normal processing of the element continues, otherwise the statement element is immediately removed from the template. For these purposes, the value nothing is false, and default has the same effect as returning a true value.

See TALES Not expressions for information on what the default expression language considers to be true or false.

Examples

Test a variable before inserting it (the first example tests for existence and truth, while the second only tests for existence):

<p tal:condition="request/message | nothing"
   tal:content="request/message">message goes here</p>

<p tal:condition="exists:request/message"
   tal:content="request/message">message goes here</p>

Test for alternate conditions:

<div tal:repeat="item python:range(10)">
  <p tal:condition="repeat/item/even">Even</p>
  <p tal:condition="repeat/item/odd">Odd</p>
</div>

content: Replace the content of an element

Syntax

tal:content syntax:

argument ::= (['text'] | 'structure') expression

Description

Rather than replacing an entire element, you can insert text or structure in place of its children with the tal:content statement. The statement argument is exactly like that of tal:replace, and is interpreted in the same fashion. If the expression evaluates to nothing, the statement element is left childless. If the expression evaluates to default, then the element’s contents are unchanged.

The default replacement behavior is text, which replaces angle-brackets and ampersands with their HTML entity equivalents. The structure keyword passes the replacement text through unchanged, allowing HTML/XML markup to be inserted. This can break your page if the text contains unanticipated markup (e.g.. text submitted via a web form), which is the reason that it is not the default.

Examples

Inserting the user name:

<p tal:content="user/getUserName">Fred Farkas</p>

Inserting HTML/XML:

<p tal:content="structure context/getStory">
  marked <b>up</b> content goes here.
</p>

define: Define variables

Syntax

tal:define syntax:

argument       ::= define_scope [';' define_scope]*
define_scope   ::= (['local'] | 'global') define_var
define_var     ::= variable_name expression
variable_name  ::= Name

Note: If you want to include a semi-colon (;) in an ``expression``, it must be escaped by doubling it (;;).

Description

The tal:define statement defines variables. You can define two different kinds of TAL variables: local and global. When you define a local variable in a statement element, you can only use that variable in that element and the elements it contains. If you redefine a local variable in a contained element, the new definition hides the outer element’s definition within the inner element. When you define a global variables, you can use it in any element processed after the defining element. If you redefine a global variable, you replace its definition for the rest of the template.

Note: local variables are the default

If the expression associated with a variable evaluates to nothing, then that variable has the value nothing, and may be used as such in further expressions. Likewise, if the expression evaluates to default, then the variable has the value default, and may be used as such in further expressions.

Examples

Defining a global variable:

tal:define="global company_name string:Zope Corp, Inc."

Defining two variables, where the second depends on the first:

tal:define="mytitle template/title; tlen python:len(mytitle)"

omit-tag: Remove an element, leaving its contents

Syntax

tal:omit-tag syntax:

argument ::= [ expression ]

Description

The tal:omit-tag statement leaves the contents of an element in place while omitting the surrounding start and end tags.

If the expression evaluates to a false value, then normal processing of the element continues and the tags are not omitted. If the expression evaluates to a true value, or no expression is provided, the statement element is replaced with its contents. The default value is considered to be true.

See TALES Not expressions for information on what the default expression language considers to be true or false.

Examples

Unconditionally omitting a tag:

<div tal:omit-tag="" comment="This tag will be removed">
  <i>...but this text will remain.</i>
</div>

Conditionally omitting a tag:

<b tal:omit-tag="not:bold">
  I may be bold.
</b>

The above example will omit the b tag if the variable bold is false.

Creating ten paragraph tags, with no enclosing tag:

<span tal:repeat="n python:range(10)"
      tal:omit-tag="">
  <p tal:content="n">1</p>
</span>

on-error: Handle errors

Syntax

tal:on-error syntax:

argument ::= (['text'] | 'structure') expression

Description

The tal:on-error statement provides error handling for your template. When a TAL statement produces an error, the TAL interpreter searches for a tal:on-error statement on the same element, then on the enclosing element, and so forth. The first tal:on-error found is invoked. It is treated as a tal:content statement.

A local variable error is set. This variable has these attributes:

type:the exception type
value:the exception instance
traceback:the traceback object

The simplest sort of tal:on-error statement has a literal error string or nothing for an expression. A more complex handler may call a script that examines the error and either emits error text or raises an exception to propagate the error outwards.

Examples

Simple error message:

<b tal:on-error="string: Username is not defined!"
   tal:content="context/getUsername">Ishmael</b>

Removing elements with errors:

<b tal:on-error="nothing"
   tal:content="context/getUsername">Ishmael</b>

Calling an error-handling script:

<div tal:on-error="structure context/errorScript">
...
</div>

Here’s what the error-handling script might look like:

## Script (Python) "errHandler"
##bind namespace=_
##
error=_['error']
if error.type==ZeroDivisionError:
    return "<p>Can't divide by zero.</p>"
else
    return """<p>An error ocurred.</p>
    <p>Error type: %s</p>
    <p>Error value: %s</p>""" % (error.type, error.value)

repeat: Repeat an element

Syntax

tal:repeat syntax:

argument      ::= variable_name expression
variable_name ::= Name

Description

The tal:repeat statement replicates a sub-tree of your document once for each item in a sequence. The expression should evaluate to a sequence. If the sequence is empty, then the statement element is deleted, otherwise it is repeated for each value in the sequence. If the expression is default, then the element is left unchanged, and no new variables are defined.

The variable_name is used to define a local variable and a repeat variable. For each repetition, the local variable is set to the current sequence element, and the repeat variable is set to an iteration object.

Repeat Variables

You use repeat variables to access information about the current repetition (such as the repeat index). The repeat variable has the same name as the local variable, but is only accessible through the built-in variable named repeat.

Repeat Variable Attributes

index:repetition number, starting from zero.
number:repetition number, starting from one.
even:true for even-indexed repetitions (0, 2, 4, …).
odd:true for odd-indexed repetitions (1, 3, 5, …).
start:true for the starting repetition (index 0).
end:true for the ending, or final, repetition.
first:true for the first item in a group - see note below
last:true for the last item in a group - see note below
length:length of the sequence, which will be the total number of repetitions.
letter:repetition number as a lower-case letter: “a” - “z”, “aa” - “az”, “ba” - “bz”, …, “za” - “zz”, “aaa” - “aaz”, and so forth.
Letter:upper-case version of letter.
roman:repetition number as a lower-case roman numeral: “i”, “ii”, “iii”, “iv”, “v”, etc.
Roman:upper-case version of roman.

You can access the contents of the repeat variable using path expressions or Python expressions. In path expressions, you write a three-part path consisting of the name repeat, the statement variable’s name, and the name of the information you want, for example, repeat/item/start. In Python expressions, you use normal dictionary notation to get the repeat variable, then attribute access to get the information, for example, “python:repeat[‘item’].start”.

With the exception of start, end, and index, all of the attributes of a repeat variable are methods. Thus, when you use a Python expression to access them, you must call them, as in “python:repeat[‘item’].length()”.

Note

first and last are intended for use with sorted sequences. They try to divide the sequence into group of items with the same value. If you provide a path, then the value obtained by following that path from a sequence item is used for grouping, otherwise the value of the item is used. You can provide the path by passing it as a parameter, as in:

python:repeat['item'].first(color)

or by appending it to the path from the repeat variable, as in “repeat/item/first/color”.

Zope Implementation Note

first and last are Zope 2 extensions and are not available in other implementations.

Examples

Iterating over a sequence of strings:

<p tal:repeat="txt python: ('one', 'two', 'three')">
  <span tal:replace="txt" />
</p>

Inserting a sequence of table rows, and using the repeat variable to number the rows:

<table>
  <tr tal:repeat="item context/cart">
    <td tal:content="repeat/item/number">1</td>
    <td tal:content="item/description">Widget</td>
    <td tal:content="item/price">$1.50</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Nested repeats:

<table border="1">
  <tr tal:repeat="row python:range(10)">
    <td tal:repeat="column python:range(10)">
      <span tal:define="x repeat/row/number;
                        y repeat/column/number;
                        z python:x*y"
            tal:replace="string:$x * $y = $z">
          1 * 1 = 1
      </span>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Insert objects. Separate groups of objects by meta-type by drawing a rule between them:

<div tal:repeat="object objects">
  <h2 tal:condition="repeat/object/first/meta_type"
      tal:content="object/meta_type">Meta Type</h2>
  <p tal:content="object/getId">Object ID</p>
  <hr tal:condition="repeat/object/last/meta_type" />
</div>

Note, the objects in the above example should already be sorted by meta-type.

replace: Replace an element

Syntax

tal:replace syntax:

argument ::= (['text'] | 'structure') expression

Description

The tal:replace statement replaces an element with dynamic content. It replaces the statement element with either text or a structure (unescaped markup). The body of the statement is an expression with an optional type prefix. The value of the expression is converted into an escaped string if you prefix the expression with text or omit the prefix, and is inserted unchanged if you prefix it with structure. Escaping consists of converting “&amp;” to “&amp;amp;”, “&lt;” to “&amp;lt;”, and “&gt;” to “&amp;gt;”.

If the value is nothing, then the element is simply removed. If the value is default, then the element is left unchanged.

Examples

The two ways to insert the title of a template:

<span tal:replace="template/title">Title</span>
<span tal:replace="text template/title">Title</span>

Inserting HTML/XML:

<div tal:replace="structure table" />

Inserting nothing:

<div tal:replace="nothing">
  This element is a comment.
</div>