Among the many different approaches to "templating" with Perl--such as Embperl, Mason, HTML::Template, and hundreds of other lesser known systems--the Template Toolkit is widely recognized as one of the most versatile. Like other templating systems, the Template Toolkit allows programmers to embed Perl code and custom macros into HTML documents in order to create customized documents on the fly. But unlike the others, the Template Toolkit is as facile at producing HTML as it is at producing XML, PDF, or any other output format. And because it has its own simple templating language, templates can be written and edited by people who don't know Perl. In short, the Template Toolkit combines the best features of its competitors, with ease-of-use and flexibility, resulting in a technology that's fast, powerful and extensible, and ideally suited to the production and maintenance of web content and other dynamic document systems. In Perl Template Toolkit you'll find detailed coverage of this increasingly popular technology. Written by core members of the technology's development team, the book guides you through the entire process of installing, configuring, using, and extending the Template Toolkit. It begins with a fast-paced but thorough tutorial on building web content with the Template Toolkit, and then walks you through generating and using data files, particularly with XML. It also provides detailed information on the Template Toolkit's modules, libraries, and tools in addition to a complete reference manual. Topics in the book include:

• Getting started with the template toolkit

• The Template language

• Template directives

• Filters

• Plugins

• Extending the Template Toolkit

• Accessing databases

• XML

• Advanced static web page techniques

• Dynamic web content and web applications

The only book to cover this important tool, Perl Template Toolkit is essential reading for any Perl programmer who wants to create dynamic web content that is remarkably easy to maintain. This book is your surefire guide to implementing this fast, flexible, and powerful templating system.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 3 Ratings

good book for several audiences - 2004-01-25
Reviewer Rating:
I picked up this book because I want to use a templateing system to produce web pages and I grok Perl pretty well. This book seems designed for at least two audiences, people who want to create something like a website using the TT and people who want to hack/extend the template toolkit.

The book is a very gentle and seemingly thorough introduction and explanation. The authors write with clarity and humor. I must admit that the authors write with such thoroughness and gentleness that I sometimes grew impatient. One addition I would have liked is more examples. Chapter 2 carefully explains a complete, but very simple example and Chapters 11 and 12 contain much richer examples. However, I find that I never learn unless I *do* and for such a long book, I was surprised that there wasn't more directly about the application of the TT.

You can use this book and the toolkit without knowing any Perl. The authors explain things well and clearly. However, you will get maximum value from the TT (and grok the syntax most quickly) if you know some Perl. The material on filters and plugins (there is a chapter on each, parts of another chapter about writing your own, plus entire chapters dealing with DBI and XML plugins... it's a good chunk of the book) is wonderfully detailed and probably justifies the book.

I skimmed most of the material on hacking and extending the toolkit. It seemed pretty thorough, even explaining how to alter or replace the TT syntax (right down to a quick tutorial on Yapp/yacc). I learned a lot from the little bit I read. I suspect this would be very helpful to Perl hackers and others as an example.

A note about the toolkit itself. It's very powerful. In many ways, it's like Perl itself (e.g., it has a Perl-like syntax). It has exceptions but scoping seems weak and there appears not to be anything like 'use strict'.

In summary, this is a good book for a variety of audiences. It is very well written and you should leave it's pages with enough know-how to use it for something like web page generation. I learned a lot about Perl and available CPAN modules (in addition to learning a lot about the TT). But I wish there was more direct practical application as examples, exercises, recipes, etc.

Well written, but not terribly useful for what I wanted. - 2005-07-05
Reviewer Rating:
I was looking for a book which would describe the template toolkit in great detail for use in web development(CGI's).

Specifically I wanted something which would match the perl TT with Class::DBI and CGI::FormBuilder.

The Perl Template Toolkit was clearly written with good examples, but is fairly light in the CGI realm. Only chapter 12 has CGI examples, with no javascript thrown in.

A mating to CGI::FormBuilder is a natural marriage to the perl template toolkit, but CGI::FormBuilder is not even mentioned.

It's too bad the book doesn't cover in more detail some of the commonly used CGI modules in conjunction with the perl template toolkit, as the writing and examples are top notch.

It's a great look at the template toolkit, but doen't throw in enough info to hook it into the rest of the perl/web development realm to be as useful as it could have been.

With a few more chapters I think this could be a really great book.

I would not have purchased this book if I had thumbed through it at a bookstore.

A very powerful and verstile tool - 2007-03-30
Reviewer Rating:
I used this book on a couple of projects and was very impressed with how helpful it was. A suggest that I would like to see in this already large book is more examples of a full project. Each chapter addresses a part of the tool and the final chapter brings it all together, I would like to see another chapter for an example.

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