ZPT (Zope Page-Template) Architecture

There are a number of major components that make up the page-template architecture:

• The TAL compiler and interpreter. This is responsible for compiling source files and for executing compiled templates. See the zope.tal package for more information.

• An expression engine is responsible for compiling expressions and for creating expression execution contexts. It is common for applications to override expression engines to provide custom expression support or to change the way expressions are implemented.

  The zope.pagetemplate.engine module uses this to implement trusted and untrusted evaluation; a different engine is used for each, with different implementations of the same type of expressions.

  The z3c.ptcompat package extends these engines to use the Chameleon templating system for increased speed.

  Expression contexts support execution of expressions and provide APIs for setting up variable scopes and setting variables. The expression contexts are passed to the TAL interpreter at execution time.

  The most commonly used expression implementation is that found in zope.tales.

• Page templates tie everything together. They assemble an expression engine with the TAL interpreter and orchestrate management of source and compiled template data. See zope.pagetemplate.interfaces.