Template directives are embedded between start and end markers tags. By default these tag markers are [% and %].

[% PROCESS header %]

<h1>Hello World!</h1>
<a href="[% page.next %]"><img src="[% icon.next %].gif"></a>

[% PROCESS footer %]

You can change the tag characters using the START_TAG, END_TAG and TAG_STYLE configuration options. You can also use the TAGS directive to define a new tag style for the current template file.

You can also set the INTERPOLATE option to allow simple variable references to be embedded directly in templates, prefixed by a $.

# INTERPOLATE = 0
<td>[% name %]</td>
<td>[% email %]</td>

# INTERPOLATE = 1
<td>$name</td>
<td>$email</td>

Directives may be embedded anywhere in a line of text and can be split across several lines. Insignificant whitespace is generally ignored within the directive.

[% INCLUDE header
     title = 'Hello World'
     bgcol = '#ffffff'
%]

[%INCLUDE menu align='right'%]

Name: [% name %]  ([%id%])

As of version 2.26, the Template Toolkit supports "outline" tags. These have a designated marker at the start of a line (%% by default) and continue to the end of a line. The newline character at the end of the line is discarded (aka "chomped").

So rather than writing something like this:

[% IF some.list.size -%]
  <ul>
[%   FOREACH item IN some.list -%]
    <li>[% item.html %]</li>
[%   END -%]
  </ul>
[% END -%]

You can write it like this instead:

%% IF some.list.size
  <ul>
%%   FOREACH item IN some.list
    <li>[% item.html %]</li>
%%   END
  </ul>
%% END

Outline tags aren't enabled by default. There are a numbers of ways you can enable them. The first is to use the TAGS directive to set the tag style to outline in any templates where you want to use them. This will enable outline tags from that point on.

[% TAGS outline -%]
%% INCLUDE header

You can set the TAGS back to the default value at some point later in the template if you want to disable them:

[% TAGS default -%]

You can set the TAG_STYLE configuration option if you want then enabled in all templates by default. You can always use the [% TAGS default %] directive to disable them in any templates or parts of templates if necessary.

my $tt = Template->new({
    TAG_STYLE => 'outline',
});

The OUTLINE_TAG option allows you to set the outline tag marker to something else if you're not a fan of percent signs. Setting this option will automatically enable outline tags.

my $tt = Template->new({
    OUTLINE_TAG => '>>',
});

You can also use the TAGS directive to define your own custom tags (start, end and now optionally, outline) for a template or part of a template.

[% TAGS <* *> >> %]
>> INCLUDE header       # outline tag
Hello <* name *>        # inline tag

If you only specify a start and end tag then outline tags will be disabled.

[% TAGS <* *> %]        # no outline tags

The # character is used to indicate comments within a directive. When placed immediately inside the opening directive tag, it causes the entire directive to be ignored.

[%# this entire directive is ignored no
    matter how many lines it wraps onto
%]

In any other position, it causes the remainder of the current line to be treated as a comment.

[% # this is a comment
   theta = 20      # so is this
   rho   = 30      # <aol>me too!</aol>
%]

You can add - or + to the immediate start or end of a directive tag to control the whitespace chomping options. See the PRE_CHOMP and POST_CHOMP options for further details.

[% BLOCK foo -%]    # remove trailing newline
This is block foo
[%- END %]          # remove leading newline

The simplest directives are GET and SET which retrieve and update variable values respectively. The GET and SET keywords are actually optional as the parser is smart enough to see them for what they really are (but note the caveat below on using side-effect notation). Thus, you'll generally see:

[% SET foo = 10 %]
[% GET foo %]

written as:

[% foo = 10 %]
[% foo %]

You can also express simple logical statements as implicit GET directives:

[% title or template.title or 'Default Title' %]

[% mode == 'graphics' ? "Graphics Mode Enabled" : "Text Mode" %]

All other directives should start with a keyword specified in UPPER CASE (but see the ANYCASE option). All directives keywords are in UPPER CASE to make them visually distinctive and to distinguish them from variables of the same name but different case. It is perfectly valid, for example, to define a variable called stop which is entirely separate from the STOP directive.

[% stop = 'Clackett Lane Bus Depot' %]

The bus will next stop at [% stop %]    # variable

[% STOP %]                              # directive

Directives such as FOREACH, WHILE, BLOCK, FILTER, etc., mark the start of a block which may contain text or other directives up to the matching END directive. Blocks may be nested indefinitely. The IF, UNLESS, ELSIF and ELSE directives also define blocks and may be grouped together in the usual manner.

[% FOREACH item = [ 'foo' 'bar' 'baz' ] %]
   * Item: [% item %]
[% END %]

[% BLOCK footer %]
   Copyright 2000 [% me %]
   [% INCLUDE company/logo %]
[% END %]

[% IF foo %]
   [% FOREACH thing = foo.things %]
      [% thing %]
   [% END %]
[% ELSIF bar %]
   [% INCLUDE barinfo %]
[% ELSE %]
   do nothing...
[% END %]

Block directives can also be used in a convenient side-effect notation.

[% INCLUDE userinfo FOREACH user = userlist %]

[% INCLUDE debugtxt msg="file: $error.info"
     IF debugging %]

[% "Danger Will Robinson" IF atrisk %]

versus:

[% FOREACH user = userlist %]
   [% INCLUDE userinfo %]
[% END %]

[% IF debugging %]
   [% INCLUDE debugtxt msg="file: $error.info" %]
[% END %]

[% IF atrisk %]
Danger Will Robinson
[% END %]

The output of a directive can be captured by simply assigning the directive to a variable.

[% headtext = PROCESS header title="Hello World" %]

[% people = PROCESS userinfo FOREACH user = userlist %]

This can be used in conjunction with the BLOCK directive for defining large blocks of text or other content.

[% poem = BLOCK %]
   The boy stood on the burning deck,
   His fleece was white as snow.
   A rolling stone gathers no moss,
   And Keith is sure to follow.
[% END %]

Note one important caveat of using this syntax in conjunction with side-effect notation. The following directive does not behave as might be expected:

[% var = 'value' IF some_condition %]   # does not work

In this case, the directive is interpreted as (spacing added for clarity)

[% var = IF some_condition %]
   value
[% END %]

rather than

[% IF some_condition %]
   [% var = 'value' %]
[% END %]

The variable is assigned the output of the IF block which returns 'value' if true, but nothing if false. In other words, the following directive will always cause 'var' to be cleared.

[% var = 'value' IF 0 %]

To achieve the expected behaviour, the directive should be written as:

[% SET var = 'value' IF some_condition %]

Multiple FILTER directives can be chained together in sequence. They are called in the order defined, piping the output of one into the input of the next.

[% PROCESS somefile FILTER truncate(100) FILTER html %]

The pipe character, |, can also be used as an alias for FILTER.

[% PROCESS somefile | truncate(100) | html %]

Multiple directives can be included within a single tag when delimited by semi-colons. Note however that the TAGS directive must always be specified in a tag by itself.

[% IF title;
      INCLUDE header;
   ELSE;
      INCLUDE other/header  title="Some Other Title";
   END
%]

versus

[% IF title %]
   [% INCLUDE header %]
[% ELSE %]
   [% INCLUDE other/header  title="Some Other Title" %]
[% END %]