# SimpleTAL API

Documentation on how to use the SimpleTAL API.

SimpleTAL consists of three different modules: simpleTAL, simpleTALES, and simpleTALUtils. The API for each of these modules is documented separately:

- simpleTAL - contains functions to compile HTML and XML templates into objects ready for use.
- simpleTALES - contains the Context class which provides the environment in which templates are expanded.
- simpleTALUtils - optional utility functions for dealing with SimpleTAL templates.
- simpleElementTree - optional integration with ElementTree allowing XML documents to be parsed and placed directly into the Context instance.

## International character support

SimpleTAL supports all character sets that Python supports. To use non-ASCII characters first convert them to Unicode strings prior to placing them into the Context object.

## Logging in SimpleTAL

SimpleTAL uses the logging library, which is shipped as part of Python 2.3, to handle logging of debug messages, warnings, and errors. When used on a system that has no logging library SimpleTAL will suppress all logging messages.

To control the output of logging messages from SimpleTAL it is necessary to retrieve the logger objects for each module, which can be done using:

    simpleTALLogger = logging.getLogger ("simpleTAL")
    simpleTALESLogger = logging.getLogger ("simpleTALES")

The configuration of these loggers can then be adjusted as described in the logging library documentation. For example to stop warnings being logged:

    simpleTALLogger.setLevel (logging.ERROR)
    simpleTALESLogger.setLevel (logging.ERROR)

Back to SimpleTAL

PubTal Version