Provided by: libtext-template-perl_1.47-1_all bug

NAME

       Text::Template - Expand template text with embedded Perl

VERSION

       version 1.47

SYNOPSIS

        use Text::Template;

        $template = Text::Template->new(TYPE => 'FILE',  SOURCE => 'filename.tmpl');
        $template = Text::Template->new(TYPE => 'ARRAY', SOURCE => [ ... ] );
        $template = Text::Template->new(TYPE => 'FILEHANDLE', SOURCE => $fh );
        $template = Text::Template->new(TYPE => 'STRING', SOURCE => '...' );
        $template = Text::Template->new(PREPEND => q{use strict;}, ...);

        # Use a different template file syntax:
        $template = Text::Template->new(DELIMITERS => [$open, $close], ...);

        $recipient = 'King';
        $text = $template->fill_in();  # Replaces `{$recipient}' with `King'
        print $text;

        $T::recipient = 'Josh';
        $text = $template->fill_in(PACKAGE => T);

        # Pass many variables explicitly
        $hash = { recipient => 'Abed-Nego',
                  friends => [ 'me', 'you' ],
                  enemies => { loathsome => 'Bill Gates',
                               fearsome => 'Larry Ellison' },
                };
        $text = $template->fill_in(HASH => $hash, ...);
        # $recipient is Abed-Nego,
        # @friends is ( 'me', 'you' ),
        # %enemies is ( loathsome => ..., fearsome => ... )

        # Call &callback in case of programming errors in template
        $text = $template->fill_in(BROKEN => \&callback, BROKEN_ARG => $ref, ...);

        # Evaluate program fragments in Safe compartment with restricted permissions
        $text = $template->fill_in(SAFE => $compartment, ...);

        # Print result text instead of returning it
        $success = $template->fill_in(OUTPUT => \*FILEHANDLE, ...);

        # Parse template with different template file syntax:
        $text = $template->fill_in(DELIMITERS => [$open, $close], ...);
        # Note that this is *faster* than using the default delimiters

        # Prepend specified perl code to each fragment before evaluating:
        $text = $template->fill_in(PREPEND => q{use strict 'vars';}, ...);

        use Text::Template 'fill_in_string';
        $text = fill_in_string( <<EOM, PACKAGE => 'T', ...);
        Dear {$recipient},
        Pay me at once.
               Love,
                G.V.
        EOM

        use Text::Template 'fill_in_file';
        $text = fill_in_file($filename, ...);

        # All templates will always have `use strict vars' attached to all fragments
        Text::Template->always_prepend(q{use strict 'vars';});

DESCRIPTION

       This is a library for generating form letters, building HTML pages, or filling in
       templates generally.  A `template' is a piece of text that has little Perl programs
       embedded in it here and there.  When you `fill in' a template, you evaluate the little
       programs and replace them with their values.

       You can store a template in a file outside your program.  People can modify the template
       without modifying the program.  You can separate the formatting details from the main
       code, and put the formatting parts of the program into the template.  That prevents code
       bloat and encourages functional separation.

   Example
       Here's an example of a template, which we'll suppose is stored in the file
       "formletter.tmpl":

               Dear {$title} {$lastname},

               It has come to our attention that you are delinquent in your
               {$monthname[$last_paid_month]} payment.  Please remit
               ${sprintf("%.2f", $amount)} immediately, or your patellae may
               be needlessly endangered.

                               Love,

                               Mark "Vizopteryx" Dominus

       The result of filling in this template is a string, which might look something like this:

               Dear Mr. Gates,

               It has come to our attention that you are delinquent in your
               February payment.  Please remit
               $392.12 immediately, or your patellae may
               be needlessly endangered.

                               Love,

                               Mark "Vizopteryx" Dominus

       Here is a complete program that transforms the example template into the example result,
       and prints it out:

               use Text::Template;

               my $template = Text::Template->new(SOURCE => 'formletter.tmpl')
                 or die "Couldn't construct template: $Text::Template::ERROR";

               my @monthname = qw(January February March April May June
                                  July August September October November December);
               my %vars = (title => 'Mr.',
                           firstname => 'Bill',
                           lastname => 'Gates',
                           last_paid_month => 1,   # February
                           amount => 392.12,
                           monthname => \@monthname,
                          );

               my $result = $template->fill_in(HASH => \%vars);

               if (defined $result) { print $result }
               else { die "Couldn't fill in template: $Text::Template::ERROR" }

   Philosophy
       When people make a template module like this one, they almost always start by inventing a
       special syntax for substitutions.  For example, they build it so that a string like
       "%%VAR%%" is replaced with the value of $VAR.  Then they realize the need extra
       formatting, so they put in some special syntax for formatting.  Then they need a loop, so
       they invent a loop syntax.  Pretty soon they have a new little template language.

       This approach has two problems: First, their little language is crippled. If you need to
       do something the author hasn't thought of, you lose.  Second: Who wants to learn another
       language?  You already know Perl, so why not use it?

       "Text::Template" templates are programmed in Perl.  You embed Perl code in your template,
       with "{" at the beginning and "}" at the end.  If you want a variable interpolated, you
       write it the way you would in Perl.  If you need to make a loop, you can use any of the
       Perl loop constructions.  All the Perl built-in functions are available.

Details

   Template Parsing
       The "Text::Template" module scans the template source.  An open brace "{" begins a program
       fragment, which continues until the matching close brace "}".  When the template is filled
       in, the program fragments are evaluated, and each one is replaced with the resulting value
       to yield the text that is returned.

       A backslash "\" in front of a brace (or another backslash that is in front of a brace)
       escapes its special meaning.  The result of filling out this template:

               \{ The sum of 1 and 2 is {1+2}  \}

       is

               { The sum of 1 and 2 is 3  }

       If you have an unmatched brace, "Text::Template" will return a failure code and a warning
       about where the problem is.  Backslashes that do not precede a brace are passed through
       unchanged.  If you have a template like this:

               { "String that ends in a newline.\n" }

       The backslash inside the string is passed through to Perl unchanged, so the "\n" really
       does turn into a newline.  See the note at the end for details about the way backslashes
       work.  Backslash processing is not done when you specify alternative delimiters with the
       "DELIMITERS" option.  (See "Alternative Delimiters", below.)

       Each program fragment should be a sequence of Perl statements, which are evaluated the
       usual way.  The result of the last statement executed will be evaluated in scalar context;
       the result of this statement is a string, which is interpolated into the template in place
       of the program fragment itself.

       The fragments are evaluated in order, and side effects from earlier fragments will persist
       into later fragments:

               {$x = @things; ''}The Lord High Chamberlain has gotten {$x}
               things for me this year.
               { $diff = $x - 17;
                 $more = 'more'
                 if ($diff == 0) {
                   $diff = 'no';
                 } elsif ($diff < 0) {
                   $more = 'fewer';
                 }
                 '';
               }
               That is {$diff} {$more} than he gave me last year.

       The value of $x set in the first line will persist into the next fragment that begins on
       the third line, and the values of $diff and $more set in the second fragment will persist
       and be interpolated into the last line.  The output will look something like this:

               The Lord High Chamberlain has gotten 42
               things for me this year.

               That is 25 more than he gave me last year.

       That is all the syntax there is.

   The $OUT variable
       There is one special trick you can play in a template.  Here is the motivation for it:
       Suppose you are going to pass an array, @items, into the template, and you want the
       template to generate a bulleted list with a header, like this:

               Here is a list of the things I have got for you since 1907:
                 * Ivory
                 * Apes
                 * Peacocks
                 * ...

       One way to do it is with a template like this:

               Here is a list of the things I have got for you since 1907:
               { my $blist = '';
                 foreach $i (@items) {
                   $blist .= qq{  * $i\n};
                 }
                 $blist;
               }

       Here we construct the list in a variable called $blist, which we return at the end.  This
       is a little cumbersome.  There is a shortcut.

       Inside of templates, there is a special variable called $OUT.  Anything you append to this
       variable will appear in the output of the template.  Also, if you use $OUT in a program
       fragment, the normal behavior, of replacing the fragment with its return value, is
       disabled; instead the fragment is replaced with the value of $OUT.  This means that you
       can write the template above like this:

               Here is a list of the things I have got for you since 1907:
               { foreach $i (@items) {
                   $OUT .= "  * $i\n";
                 }
               }

       $OUT is reinitialized to the empty string at the start of each program fragment.  It is
       private to "Text::Template", so you can't use a variable named $OUT in your template
       without invoking the special behavior.

   General Remarks
       All "Text::Template" functions return "undef" on failure, and set the variable
       $Text::Template::ERROR to contain an explanation of what went wrong.  For example, if you
       try to create a template from a file that does not exist, $Text::Template::ERROR will
       contain something like:

               Couldn't open file xyz.tmpl: No such file or directory

   "new"
               $template = new Text::Template ( TYPE => ..., SOURCE => ... );

       This creates and returns a new template object.  "new" returns "undef" and sets
       $Text::Template::ERROR if it can't create the template object.  "SOURCE" says where the
       template source code will come from.  "TYPE" says what kind of object the source is.

       The most common type of source is a file:

               new Text::Template ( TYPE => 'FILE', SOURCE => $filename );

       This reads the template from the specified file.  The filename is opened with the Perl
       "open" command, so it can be a pipe or anything else that makes sense with "open".

       The "TYPE" can also be "STRING", in which case the "SOURCE" should be a string:

               new Text::Template ( TYPE => 'STRING',
                                    SOURCE => "This is the actual template!" );

       The "TYPE" can be "ARRAY", in which case the source should be a reference to an array of
       strings.  The concatenation of these strings is the template:

               new Text::Template ( TYPE => 'ARRAY',
                                    SOURCE => [ "This is ", "the actual",
                                                " template!",
                                              ]
                                  );

       The "TYPE" can be FILEHANDLE, in which case the source should be an open filehandle (such
       as you got from the "FileHandle" or "IO::*" packages, or a glob, or a reference to a
       glob).  In this case "Text::Template" will read the text from the filehandle up to end-of-
       file, and that text is the template:

               # Read template source code from STDIN:
               new Text::Template ( TYPE => 'FILEHANDLE',
                                    SOURCE => \*STDIN  );

       If you omit the "TYPE" attribute, it's taken to be "FILE".  "SOURCE" is required.  If you
       omit it, the program will abort.

       The words "TYPE" and "SOURCE" can be spelled any of the following ways:

               TYPE    SOURCE
               Type    Source
               type    source
               -TYPE   -SOURCE
               -Type   -Source
               -type   -source

       Pick a style you like and stick with it.

       "DELIMITERS"
           You may also add a "DELIMITERS" option.  If this option is present, its value should
           be a reference to an array of two strings.  The first string is the string that
           signals the beginning of each program fragment, and the second string is the string
           that signals the end of each program fragment.  See "Alternative Delimiters", below.

       "UNTAINT"
           If your program is running in taint mode, you may have problems if your templates are
           stored in files.  Data read from files is considered 'untrustworthy', and taint mode
           will not allow you to evaluate the Perl code in the file.  (It is afraid that a
           malicious person might have tampered with the file.)

           In some environments, however, local files are trustworthy.  You can tell
           "Text::Template" that a certain file is trustworthy by supplying "UNTAINT => 1" in the
           call to "new".  This will tell "Text::Template" to disable taint checks on template
           code that has come from a file, as long as the filename itself is considered
           trustworthy.  It will also disable taint checks on template code that comes from a
           filehandle.  When used with "TYPE => 'string'" or "TYPE => 'array'", it has no effect.

           See perlsec for more complete information about tainting.

           Thanks to Steve Palincsar, Gerard Vreeswijk, and Dr. Christoph Baehr for help with
           this feature.

       "PREPEND"
           This option is passed along to the "fill_in" call unless it is overridden in the
           arguments to "fill_in".  See ""PREPEND" feature and using "strict" in templates"
           below.

       "BROKEN"
           This option is passed along to the "fill_in" call unless it is overridden in the
           arguments to "fill_in".  See "BROKEN" below.

   "compile"
               $template->compile()

       Loads all the template text from the template's source, parses and compiles it.  If
       successful, returns true; otherwise returns false and sets $Text::Template::ERROR.  If the
       template is already compiled, it returns true and does nothing.

       You don't usually need to invoke this function, because "fill_in" (see below) compiles the
       template if it isn't compiled already.

       If there is an argument to this function, it must be a reference to an array containing
       alternative delimiter strings.  See "Alternative Delimiters", below.

   "fill_in"
               $template->fill_in(OPTIONS);

       Fills in a template.  Returns the resulting text if successful.  Otherwise, returns
       "undef"  and sets $Text::Template::ERROR.

       The OPTIONS are a hash, or a list of key-value pairs.  You can write the key names in any
       of the six usual styles as above; this means that where this manual says "PACKAGE" (for
       example) you can actually use any of

               PACKAGE Package package -PACKAGE -Package -package

       Pick a style you like and stick with it.  The all-lowercase versions may yield spurious
       warnings about

               Ambiguous use of package => resolved to "package"

       so you might like to avoid them and use the capitalized versions.

       At present, there are eight legal options:  "PACKAGE", "BROKEN", "BROKEN_ARG", "SAFE",
       "HASH", "OUTPUT", and "DELIMITERS".

       "PACKAGE"
           "PACKAGE" specifies the name of a package in which the program fragments should be
           evaluated.  The default is to use the package from which "fill_in" was called.  For
           example, consider this template:

                   The value of the variable x is {$x}.

           If you use "$template->fill_in(PACKAGE => 'R')" , then the $x in the template is
           actually replaced with the value of $R::x.  If you omit the "PACKAGE" option, $x will
           be replaced with the value of the $x variable in the package that actually called
           "fill_in".

           You should almost always use "PACKAGE".  If you don't, and your template makes changes
           to variables, those changes will be propagated back into the main program.  Evaluating
           the template in a private package helps prevent this.  The template can still modify
           variables in your program if it wants to, but it will have to do so explicitly.  See
           the section at the end on `Security'.

           Here's an example of using "PACKAGE":

                   Your Royal Highness,

                   Enclosed please find a list of things I have gotten
                   for you since 1907:

                   { foreach $item (@items) {
                       $item_no++;
                       $OUT .= " $item_no. \u$item\n";
                     }
                   }

                   Signed,
                   Lord High Chamberlain

           We want to pass in an array which will be assigned to the array @items.  Here's how to
           do that:

                   @items = ('ivory', 'apes', 'peacocks', );
                   $template->fill_in();

           This is not very safe.  The reason this isn't as safe is that if you had a variable
           named $item_no in scope in your program at the point you called "fill_in", its value
           would be clobbered by the act of filling out the template.  The problem is the same as
           if you had written a subroutine that used those variables in the same way that the
           template does.  ($OUT is special in templates and is always safe.)

           One solution to this is to make the $item_no variable private to the template by
           declaring it with "my".  If the template does this, you are safe.

           But if you use the "PACKAGE" option, you will probably be safe even if the template
           does not declare its variables with "my":

                   @Q::items = ('ivory', 'apes', 'peacocks', );
                   $template->fill_in(PACKAGE => 'Q');

           In this case the template will clobber the variable $Q::item_no, which is not related
           to the one your program was using.

           Templates cannot affect variables in the main program that are declared with "my",
           unless you give the template references to those variables.

       "HASH"
           You may not want to put the template variables into a package.  Packages can be hard
           to manage:  You can't copy them, for example.  "HASH" provides an alternative.

           The value for "HASH" should be a reference to a hash that maps variable names to
           values.  For example,

                   $template->fill_in(HASH => { recipient => "The King",
                                                items => ['gold', 'frankincense', 'myrrh'],
                                                object => \$self,
                                              });

           will fill out the template and use "The King" as the value of $recipient and the list
           of items as the value of @items.  Note that we pass an array reference, but inside the
           template it appears as an array.  In general, anything other than a simple string or
           number should be passed by reference.

           We also want to pass an object, which is in $self; note that we pass a reference to
           the object, "\$self" instead.  Since we've passed a reference to a scalar, inside the
           template the object appears as $object.

           The full details of how it works are a little involved, so you might want to skip to
           the next section.

           Suppose the key in the hash is key and the value is value.

           •   If the value is "undef", then any variables named $key, @key, %key, etc., are
               undefined.

           •   If the value is a string or a number, then $key is set to that value in the
               template.

           •   For anything else, you must pass a reference.

               If the value is a reference to an array, then @key is set to that array.  If the
               value is a reference to a hash, then %key is set to that hash.  Similarly if value
               is any other kind of reference.  This means that

                       var => "foo"

               and

                       var => \"foo"

               have almost exactly the same effect.  (The difference is that in the former case,
               the value is copied, and in the latter case it is aliased.)

           •   In particular, if you want the template to get an object or any kind, you must
               pass a reference to it:

                       $template->fill_in(HASH => { database_handle => \$dbh, ... });

               If you do this, the template will have a variable $database_handle which is the
               database handle object.  If you leave out the "\", the template will have a hash
               %database_handle, which exposes the internal structure of the database handle
               object; you don't want that.

           Normally, the way this works is by allocating a private package, loading all the
           variables into the package, and then filling out the template as if you had specified
           that package.  A new package is allocated each time.  However, if you also use the
           "PACKAGE" option, "Text::Template" loads the variables into the package you specified,
           and they stay there after the call returns.  Subsequent calls to "fill_in" that use
           the same package will pick up the values you loaded in.

           If the argument of "HASH" is a reference to an array instead of a reference to a hash,
           then the array should contain a list of hashes whose contents are loaded into the
           template package one after the other.  You can use this feature if you want to combine
           several sets of variables.  For example, one set of variables might be the defaults
           for a fill-in form, and the second set might be the user inputs, which override the
           defaults when they are present:

                   $template->fill_in(HASH => [\%defaults, \%user_input]);

           You can also use this to set two variables with the same name:

                   $template->fill_in(HASH => [{ v => "The King" },
                                               { v => [1,2,3] },
                                              ]
                                     );

           This sets $v to "The King" and @v to "(1,2,3)".

       "BROKEN"
           If any of the program fragments fails to compile or aborts for any reason, and you
           have set the "BROKEN" option to a function reference, "Text::Template" will invoke the
           function.  This function is called the "BROKEN" function.  The "BROKEN" function will
           tell "Text::Template" what to do next.

           If the "BROKEN" function returns "undef", "Text::Template" will immediately abort
           processing the template and return the text that it has accumulated so far.  If your
           function does this, it should set a flag that you can examine after "fill_in" returns
           so that you can tell whether there was a premature return or not.

           If the "BROKEN" function returns any other value, that value will be interpolated into
           the template as if that value had been the return value of the program fragment to
           begin with.  For example, if the "BROKEN" function returns an error string, the error
           string will be interpolated into the output of the template in place of the program
           fragment that cased the error.

           If you don't specify a "BROKEN" function, "Text::Template" supplies a default one that
           returns something like

                   Program fragment delivered error ``Illegal division by 0 at
                   template line 37''

           (Note that the format of this message has changed slightly since version 1.31.)  The
           return value of the "BROKEN" function is interpolated into the template at the place
           the error occurred, so that this template:

                   (3+4)*5 = { 3+4)*5 }

           yields this result:

                   (3+4)*5 = Program fragment delivered error ``syntax error at template line 1''

           If you specify a value for the "BROKEN" attribute, it should be a reference to a
           function that "fill_in" can call instead of the default function.

           "fill_in" will pass a hash to the "broken" function.  The hash will have at least
           these three members:

           "text"
               The source code of the program fragment that failed

           "error"
               The text of the error message ($@) generated by eval.

               The text has been modified to omit the trailing newline and to include the name of
               the template file (if there was one).  The line number counts from the beginning
               of the template, not from the beginning of the failed program fragment.

           "lineno"
               The line number of the template at which the program fragment began.

           There may also be an "arg" member.  See "BROKEN_ARG", below

       "BROKEN_ARG"
           If you supply the "BROKEN_ARG" option to "fill_in", the value of the option is passed
           to the "BROKEN" function whenever it is called.  The default "BROKEN" function ignores
           the "BROKEN_ARG", but you can write a custom "BROKEN" function that uses the
           "BROKEN_ARG" to get more information about what went wrong.

           The "BROKEN" function could also use the "BROKEN_ARG" as a reference to store an error
           message or some other information that it wants to communicate back to the caller.
           For example:

                   $error = '';

                   sub my_broken {
                      my %args = @_;
                      my $err_ref = $args{arg};
                      ...
                      $$err_ref = "Some error message";
                      return undef;
                   }

                   $template->fill_in(BROKEN => \&my_broken,
                                      BROKEN_ARG => \$error,
                                     );

                   if ($error) {
                     die "It didn't work: $error";
                   }

           If one of the program fragments in the template fails, it will call the "BROKEN"
           function, "my_broken", and pass it the "BROKEN_ARG", which is a reference to $error.
           "my_broken" can store an error message into $error this way.  Then the function that
           called "fill_in" can see if "my_broken" has left an error message for it to find, and
           proceed accordingly.

       "SAFE"
           If you give "fill_in" a "SAFE" option, its value should be a safe compartment object
           from the "Safe" package.  All evaluation of program fragments will be performed in
           this compartment.  See Safe for full details about such compartments and how to
           restrict the operations that can be performed in them.

           If you use the "PACKAGE" option with "SAFE", the package you specify will be placed
           into the safe compartment and evaluation will take place in that package as usual.

           If not, "SAFE" operation is a little different from the default.  Usually, if you
           don't specify a package, evaluation of program fragments occurs in the package from
           which the template was invoked.  But in "SAFE" mode the evaluation occurs inside the
           safe compartment and cannot affect the calling package.  Normally, if you use "HASH"
           without "PACKAGE", the hash variables are imported into a private, one-use-only
           package.  But if you use "HASH" and "SAFE" together without "PACKAGE", the hash
           variables will just be loaded into the root namespace of the "Safe" compartment.

       "OUTPUT"
           If your template is going to generate a lot of text that you are just going to print
           out again anyway,  you can save memory by having "Text::Template" print out the text
           as it is generated instead of making it into a big string and returning the string.
           If you supply the "OUTPUT" option to "fill_in", the value should be a filehandle.  The
           generated text will be printed to this filehandle as it is constructed.  For example:

                   $template->fill_in(OUTPUT => \*STDOUT, ...);

           fills in the $template as usual, but the results are immediately printed to STDOUT.
           This may result in the output appearing more quickly than it would have otherwise.

           If you use "OUTPUT", the return value from "fill_in" is still true on success and
           false on failure, but the complete text is not returned to the caller.

       "PREPEND"
           You can have some Perl code prepended automatically to the beginning of every program
           fragment.  See ""PREPEND" feature and using "strict" in templates" below.

       "DELIMITERS"
           If this option is present, its value should be a reference to a list of two strings.
           The first string is the string that signals the beginning of each program fragment,
           and the second string is the string that signals the end of each program fragment.
           See "Alternative Delimiters", below.

           If you specify "DELIMITERS" in the call to "fill_in", they override any delimiters you
           set when you created the template object with "new".

Convenience Functions

   "fill_this_in"
       The basic way to fill in a template is to create a template object and then call "fill_in"
       on it.   This is useful if you want to fill in the same template more than once.

       In some programs, this can be cumbersome.  "fill_this_in" accepts a string, which contains
       the template, and a list of options, which are passed to "fill_in" as above.  It
       constructs the template object for you, fills it in as specified, and returns the results.
       It returns "undef" and sets $Text::Template::ERROR if it couldn't generate any results.

       An example:

               $Q::name = 'Donald';
               $Q::amount = 141.61;
               $Q::part = 'hyoid bone';

               $text = Text::Template->fill_this_in( <<'EOM', PACKAGE => Q);
               Dear {$name},
               You owe me \\${sprintf('%.2f', $amount)}.
               Pay or I will break your {$part}.
                       Love,
                       Grand Vizopteryx of Irkutsk.
               EOM

       Notice how we included the template in-line in the program by using a `here document' with
       the "<<" notation.

       "fill_this_in" is a deprecated feature.  It is only here for backwards compatibility, and
       may be removed in some far-future version in "Text::Template".  You should use
       "fill_in_string" instead.  It is described in the next section.

   "fill_in_string"
       It is stupid that "fill_this_in" is a class method.  It should have been just an imported
       function, so that you could omit the "Text::Template->" in the example above.  But I made
       the mistake four years ago and it is too late to change it.

       "fill_in_string" is exactly like "fill_this_in" except that it is not a method and you can
       omit the "Text::Template->" and just say

               print fill_in_string(<<'EOM', ...);
               Dear {$name},
                 ...
               EOM

       To use "fill_in_string", you need to say

               use Text::Template 'fill_in_string';

       at the top of your program.   You should probably use "fill_in_string" instead of
       "fill_this_in".

   "fill_in_file"
       If you import "fill_in_file", you can say

               $text = fill_in_file(filename, ...);

       The "..." are passed to "fill_in" as above.  The filename is the name of the file that
       contains the template you want to fill in.  It returns the result text. or "undef", as
       usual.

       If you are going to fill in the same file more than once in the same program you should
       use the longer "new" / "fill_in" sequence instead.  It will be a lot faster because it
       only has to read and parse the file once.

   Including files into templates
       People always ask for this.  ``Why don't you have an include function?'' they want to
       know.  The short answer is this is Perl, and Perl already has an include function.  If you
       want it, you can just put

               {qx{cat filename}}

       into your template.  Voilà.

       If you don't want to use "cat", you can write a little four-line function that opens a
       file and dumps out its contents, and call it from the template.  I wrote one for you.  In
       the template, you can say

               {Text::Template::_load_text(filename)}

       If that is too verbose, here is a trick.  Suppose the template package that you are going
       to be mentioning in the "fill_in" call is package "Q".  Then in the main program, write

               *Q::include = \&Text::Template::_load_text;

       This imports the "_load_text" function into package "Q" with the name "include".  From
       then on, any template that you fill in with package "Q" can say

               {include(filename)}

       to insert the text from the named file at that point.  If you are using the "HASH" option
       instead, just put "include => \&Text::Template::_load_text" into the hash instead of
       importing it explicitly.

       Suppose you don't want to insert a plain text file, but rather you want to include one
       template within another?  Just use "fill_in_file" in the template itself:

               {Text::Template::fill_in_file(filename)}

       You can do the same importing trick if this is too much to type.

Miscellaneous

   "my" variables
       People are frequently surprised when this doesn't work:

               my $recipient = 'The King';
               my $text = fill_in_file('formletter.tmpl');

       The text "The King" doesn't get into the form letter.  Why not?  Because $recipient is a
       "my" variable, and the whole point of "my" variables is that they're private and
       inaccessible except in the scope in which they're declared.  The template is not part of
       that scope, so the template can't see $recipient.

       If that's not the behavior you want, don't use "my".  "my" means a private variable, and
       in this case you don't want the variable to be private.  Put the variables into package
       variables in some other package, and use the "PACKAGE" option to "fill_in":

               $Q::recipient = $recipient;
               my $text = fill_in_file('formletter.tmpl', PACKAGE => 'Q');

       or pass the names and values in a hash with the "HASH" option:

               my $text = fill_in_file('formletter.tmpl', HASH => { recipient => $recipient });

   Security Matters
       All variables are evaluated in the package you specify with the "PACKAGE" option of
       "fill_in".  if you use this option, and if your templates don't do anything egregiously
       stupid, you won't have to worry that evaluation of the little programs will creep out into
       the rest of your program and wreck something.

       Nevertheless, there's really no way (except with "Safe") to protect against a template
       that says

               { $Important::Secret::Security::Enable = 0;
                 # Disable security checks in this program
               }

       or

               { $/ = "ho ho ho";   # Sabotage future uses of <FH>.
                 # $/ is always a global variable
               }

       or even

               { system("rm -rf /") }

       so don't go filling in templates unless you're sure you know what's in them.  If you're
       worried, or you can't trust the person who wrote the template, use the "SAFE" option.

       A final warning: program fragments run a small risk of accidentally clobbering local
       variables in the "fill_in" function itself.  These variables all have names that begin
       with $fi_, so if you stay away from those names you'll be safe.  (Of course, if you're a
       real wizard you can tamper with them deliberately for exciting effects; this is actually
       how $OUT works.)  I can fix this, but it will make the package slower to do it, so I would
       prefer not to.  If you are worried about this, send me mail and I will show you what to do
       about it.

   Alternative Delimiters
       Lorenzo Valdettaro pointed out that if you are using "Text::Template" to generate TeX
       output, the choice of braces as the program fragment delimiters makes you suffer suffer
       suffer.  Starting in version 1.20, you can change the choice of delimiters to something
       other than curly braces.

       In either the "new()" call or the "fill_in()" call, you can specify an alternative set of
       delimiters with the "DELIMITERS" option.  For example, if you would like code fragments to
       be delimited by "[@--" and "--@]" instead of "{" and "}", use

               ... DELIMITERS => [ '[@--', '--@]' ], ...

       Note that these delimiters are literal strings, not regexes.  (I tried for regexes, but it
       complicates the lexical analysis too much.)  Note also that "DELIMITERS" disables the
       special meaning of the backslash, so if you want to include the delimiters in the literal
       text of your template file, you are out of luck---it is up to you to choose delimiters
       that do not conflict with what you are doing.  The delimiter strings may still appear
       inside of program fragments as long as they nest properly.  This means that if for some
       reason you absolutely must have a program fragment that mentions one of the delimiters,
       like this:

               [@--
                       print "Oh no, a delimiter: --@]\n"
               --@]

       you may be able to make it work by doing this instead:

               [@--
                       # Fake matching delimiter in a comment: [@--
                       print "Oh no, a delimiter: --@]\n"
               --@]

       It may be safer to choose delimiters that begin with a newline character.

       Because the parsing of templates is simplified by the absence of backslash escapes, using
       alternative "DELIMITERS" may speed up the parsing process by 20-25%.  This shows that my
       original choice of "{" and "}" was very bad.

   "PREPEND" feature and using "strict" in templates
       Suppose you would like to use "strict" in your templates to detect undeclared variables
       and the like.  But each code fragment is a separate lexical scope, so you have to turn on
       "strict" at the top of each and every code fragment:

               { use strict;
                 use vars '$foo';
                 $foo = 14;
                 ...
               }

               ...

               { # we forgot to put `use strict' here
                 my $result = $boo + 12;    # $boo is misspelled and should be $foo
                 # No error is raised on `$boo'
               }

       Because we didn't put "use strict" at the top of the second fragment, it was only active
       in the first fragment, and we didn't get any "strict" checking in the second fragment.
       Then we misspelled $foo and the error wasn't caught.

       "Text::Template" version 1.22 and higher has a new feature to make this easier.  You can
       specify that any text at all be automatically added to the beginning of each program
       fragment.

       When you make a call to "fill_in", you can specify a

               PREPEND => 'some perl statements here'

       option; the statements will be prepended to each program fragment for that one call only.
       Suppose that the "fill_in" call included a

               PREPEND => 'use strict;'

       option, and that the template looked like this:

               { use vars '$foo';
                 $foo = 14;
                 ...
               }

               ...

               { my $result = $boo + 12;    # $boo is misspelled and should be $foo
                 ...
               }

       The code in the second fragment would fail, because $boo has not been declared.  "use
       strict" was implied, even though you did not write it explicitly, because the "PREPEND"
       option added it for you automatically.

       There are two other ways to do this.  At the time you create the template object with
       "new", you can also supply a "PREPEND" option, in which case the statements will be
       prepended each time you fill in that template.  If the "fill_in" call has its own
       "PREPEND" option, this overrides the one specified at the time you created the template.
       Finally, you can make the class method call

               Text::Template->always_prepend('perl statements');

       If you do this, then call calls to "fill_in" for any template will attach the perl
       statements to the beginning of each program fragment, except where overridden by "PREPEND"
       options to "new" or "fill_in".

   Prepending in Derived Classes
       This section is technical, and you should skip it on the first few readings.

       Normally there are three places that prepended text could come from.  It could come from
       the "PREPEND" option in the "fill_in" call, from the "PREPEND" option in the "new" call
       that created the template object, or from the argument of the "always_prepend" call.
       "Text::Template" looks for these three things in order and takes the first one that it
       finds.

       In a subclass of "Text::Template", this last possibility is ambiguous.  Suppose "S" is a
       subclass of "Text::Template".  Should

               Text::Template->always_prepend(...);

       affect objects in class "Derived"?  The answer is that you can have it either way.

       The "always_prepend" value for "Text::Template" is normally stored in  a hash variable
       named %GLOBAL_PREPEND under the key "Text::Template".  When "Text::Template" looks to see
       what text to prepend, it first looks in the template object itself, and if not, it looks
       in $GLOBAL_PREPEND{class} where class is the class to which the template object belongs.
       If it doesn't find any value, it looks in $GLOBAL_PREPEND{'Text::Template'}.  This means
       that objects in class "Derived" will be affected by

               Text::Template->always_prepend(...);

       unless there is also a call to

               Derived->always_prepend(...);

       So when you're designing your derived class, you can arrange to have your objects ignore
       "Text::Template::always_prepend" calls by simply putting "Derived->always_prepend('')" at
       the top of your module.

       Of course, there is also a final escape hatch: Templates support a "prepend_text" that is
       used to look up the appropriate text to be prepended at "fill_in" time.  Your derived
       class can override this method to get an arbitrary effect.

   JavaScript
       Jennifer D. St Clair asks:

               > Most of my pages contain JavaScript and Stylesheets.
               > How do I change the template identifier?

       Jennifer is worried about the braces in the JavaScript being taken as the delimiters of
       the Perl program fragments.  Of course, disaster will ensue when perl tries to evaluate
       these as if they were Perl programs.  The best choice is to find some unambiguous
       delimiter strings that you can use in your template instead of curly braces, and then use
       the "DELIMITERS" option.  However, if you can't do this for some reason, there are  two
       easy workarounds:

       1. You can put "\" in front of "{", "}", or "\" to remove its special meaning.  So, for
       example, instead of

                   if (br== "n3") {
                       // etc.
                   }

       you can put

                   if (br== "n3") \{
                       // etc.
                   \}

       and it'll come out of the template engine the way you want.

       But here is another method that is probably better.  To see how it works, first consider
       what happens if you put this into a template:

                   { 'foo' }

       Since it's in braces, it gets evaluated, and obviously, this is going to turn into

                   foo

       So now here's the trick: In Perl, "q{...}" is the same as '...'.  So if we wrote

                   {q{foo}}

       it would turn into

                   foo

       So for your JavaScript, just write

                   {q{if (br== "n3") {
                        // etc.
                      }}
                   }

       and it'll come out as

                     if (br== "n3") {
                         // etc.
                     }

       which is what you want.

   Shut Up!
       People sometimes try to put an initialization section at the top of their templates, like
       this:

               { ...
                 $var = 17;
               }

       Then they complain because there is a 17 at the top of the output that they didn't want to
       have there.

       Remember that a program fragment is replaced with its own return value, and that in Perl
       the return value of a code block is the value of the last expression that was evaluated,
       which in this case is 17.  If it didn't do that, you wouldn't be able to write
       "{$recipient}" and have the recipient filled in.

       To prevent the 17 from appearing in the output is very simple:

               { ...
                 $var = 17;
                 '';
               }

       Now the last expression evaluated yields the empty string, which is invisible.  If you
       don't like the way this looks, use

               { ...
                 $var = 17;
                 ($SILENTLY);
               }

       instead.  Presumably, $SILENTLY has no value, so nothing will be interpolated.  This is
       what is known as a `trick'.

   Compatibility
       Every effort has been made to make this module compatible with older versions.  The only
       known exceptions follow:

       The output format of the default "BROKEN" subroutine has changed twice, most recently
       between versions 1.31 and 1.40.

       Starting in version 1.10, the $OUT variable is arrogated for a special meaning.  If you
       had templates before version 1.10 that happened to use a variable named $OUT, you will
       have to change them to use some other variable or all sorts of strangeness will result.

       Between versions 0.1b and 1.00 the behavior of the \ metacharacter changed.  In 0.1b, \\
       was special everywhere, and the template processor always replaced it with a single
       backslash before passing the code to Perl for evaluation.  The rule now is more
       complicated but probably more convenient.  See the section on backslash processing, below,
       for a full discussion.

   Backslash Processing
       In "Text::Template" beta versions, the backslash was special whenever it appeared before a
       brace or another backslash.  That meant that while "{"\n"}" did indeed generate a newline,
       "{"\\"}" did not generate a backslash, because the code passed to Perl for evaluation was
       "\" which is a syntax error.  If you wanted a backslash, you would have had to write
       "{"\\\\"}".

       In "Text::Template" versions 1.00 through 1.10, there was a bug: Backslash was special
       everywhere.  In these versions, "{"\n"}" generated the letter "n".

       The bug has been corrected in version 1.11, but I did not go back to exactly the old rule,
       because I did not like the idea of having to write "{"\\\\"}" to get one backslash.  The
       rule is now more complicated to remember, but probably easier to use.  The rule is now:
       Backslashes are always passed to Perl unchanged unless they occur as part of a sequence
       like "\\\\\\{" or "\\\\\\}".  In these contexts, they are special; "\\" is replaced with
       "\", and "\{" and "\}" signal a literal brace.

       Examples:

               \{ foo \}

       is not evaluated, because the "\" before the braces signals that they should be taken
       literally.  The result in the output looks like this:

               { foo }

       This is a syntax error:

               { "foo}" }

       because "Text::Template" thinks that the code ends at the first "}", and then gets upset
       when it sees the second one.  To make this work correctly, use

               { "foo\}" }

       This passes "foo}" to Perl for evaluation.  Note there's no "\" in the evaluated code.  If
       you really want a "\" in the evaluated code, use

               { "foo\\\}" }

       This passes "foo\}" to Perl for evaluation.

       Starting with "Text::Template" version 1.20, backslash processing is disabled if you use
       the "DELIMITERS" option to specify alternative delimiter strings.

   A short note about $Text::Template::ERROR
       In the past some people have fretted about `violating the package boundary' by examining a
       variable inside the "Text::Template" package.  Don't feel this way.
       $Text::Template::ERROR is part of the published, official interface to this package.  It
       is perfectly OK to inspect this variable.  The interface is not going to change.

       If it really, really bothers you, you can import a function called "TTerror" that returns
       the current value of the $ERROR variable.  So you can say:

               use Text::Template 'TTerror';

               my $template = new Text::Template (SOURCE => $filename);
               unless ($template) {
                 my $err = TTerror;
                 die "Couldn't make template: $err; aborting";
               }

       I don't see what benefit this has over just doing this:

               use Text::Template;

               my $template = new Text::Template (SOURCE => $filename)
                 or die "Couldn't make template: $Text::Template::ERROR; aborting";

       But if it makes you happy to do it that way, go ahead.

   Sticky Widgets in Template Files
       The "CGI" module provides functions for `sticky widgets', which are form input controls
       that retain their values from one page to the next.   Sometimes people want to know how to
       include these widgets into their template output.

       It's totally straightforward.  Just call the "CGI" functions from inside the template:

               { $q->checkbox_group(NAME => 'toppings',
                                    LINEBREAK => true,
                                    COLUMNS => 3,
                                    VALUES => \@toppings,
                                   );
               }

   Automatic preprocessing of program fragments
       It may be useful to preprocess the program fragments before they are evaluated.  See
       "Text::Template::Preprocess" for more details.

   Automatic postprocessing of template hunks
       It may be useful to process hunks of output before they are appended to the result text.
       For this, subclass and replace the "append_text_to_result" method.  It is passed a list of
       pairs with these entries:

         handle - a filehandle to which to print the desired output
         out    - a ref to a string to which to append, to use if handle is not given
         text   - the text that will be appended
         type   - where the text came from: TEXT for literal text, PROG for code

SUPPORT

       This software may have bugs.  Suggestions and bug reports are always welcome.  Send them
       to "mjd-perl-template+@plover.com".  (That is my address, not the address of the mailing
       list.  The mailing list address is a secret.)

THANKS

       Many thanks to the following people for offering support, encouragement, advice, bug
       reports, and all the other good stuff.

       David H. Adler / Joel Appelbaum / Klaus Arnhold / António Aragão / Kevin Atteson /
       Chris.Brezil / Mike Brodhead / Tom Brown / Dr. Frank Bucolo / Tim Bunce / Juan E. Camacho
       / Itamar Almeida de Carvalho / Joseph Cheek / Gene Damon / San Deng / Bob Dougherty /
       Marek Grac / Dan Franklin / gary at dls.net / Todd A. Green / Donald L. Greer Jr. /
       Michelangelo Grigni / Zac Hansen / Tom Henry / Jarko Hietaniemi / Matt X. Hunter / Robert
       M. Ioffe / Daniel LaLiberte / Reuven M. Lerner / Trip Lilley / Yannis Livassof / Val Luck
       / Kevin Madsen / David Marshall / James Mastros / Joel Meulenberg / Jason Moore / Sergey
       Myasnikov / Chris Nandor / Bek Oberin / Steve Palincsar / Ron Pero / Hans Persson / Sean
       Roehnelt / Jonathan Roy / Shabbir J. Safdar / Jennifer D. St Clair / Uwe Schneider /
       Randal L. Schwartz / Michael G Schwern / Yonat Sharon / Brian C. Shensky / Niklas Skoglund
       / Tom Snee / Fred Steinberg / Hans Stoop / Michael J. Suzio / Dennis Taylor / James H.
       Thompson / Shad Todd / Lieven Tomme / Lorenzo Valdettaro / Larry Virden / Andy Wardley /
       Archie Warnock / Chris Wesley / Matt Womer / Andrew G Wood / Daini Xie / Michaely Yeung

       Special thanks to:

       Jonathan Roy
         for telling me how to do the "Safe" support (I spent two years worrying about it, and
         then Jonathan pointed out that it was trivial.)

       Ranjit Bhatnagar
         for demanding less verbose fragments like they have in ASP, for helping me figure out
         the Right Thing, and, especially, for talking me out of adding any new syntax.  These
         discussions resulted in the $OUT feature.

   Bugs and Caveats
       "my" variables in "fill_in" are still susceptible to being clobbered by template
       evaluation.  They all begin with "fi_", so avoid those names in your templates.

       The line number information will be wrong if the template's lines are not terminated by
       "\n".  You should let me know if this is a problem.  If you do, I will fix it.

       The $OUT variable has a special meaning in templates, so you cannot use it as if it were a
       regular variable.

       There are not quite enough tests in the test suite.

SOURCE

       The development version is on github at <http://github.com/mschout/perl-text-template> and
       may be cloned from <git://github.com/mschout/perl-text-template.git>

BUGS

       Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-text-template@rt.cpan.org or through the
       web interface at:
        http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Text-Template

AUTHOR

       Mark Jason Dominus, Plover Systems

       Please send questions and other remarks about this software to
       "mjd-perl-template+@plover.com"

       You can join a very low-volume (<10 messages per year) mailing list for announcements
       about this package.  Send an empty note to "mjd-perl-template-request@plover.com" to join.

       For updates, visit "http://www.plover.com/~mjd/perl/Template/".

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Mark Jason Dominus <mjd@cpan.org>.

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
       the Perl 5 programming language system itself.