light weight template engine for python

Question

Which is the simplest and light weight html templating engine in Python which I can use to generate customized email newsletters.

Answer 1

Anything wrong with string.Template? This is in the standard Python distribution and covered by PEP 292:

from string import Template

form=Template('''Dear $john,

I am sorry to imform you, $john, but you will not be my husband
when you return from the $theater war. So sorry about that. Your
$action has caused me to reconsider.

Yours [NOT!!] forever,

Becky

''')

first={'john':'Joe','theater':'Afgan','action':'love'}
second={'john':'Robert','theater':'Iraq','action':'kiss'}
third={'john':'Jose','theater':'Korean','action':'discussion'}

print form.substitute(first)
print form.substitute(second)
print form.substitute(third)

Answer 2

For a really minor templating task, Python itself isn't that bad. Example:

def dynamic_text(name, food):
    return """
    Dear %(name)s,
    We're glad to hear that you like %(food)s and we'll be sending you some more soon.
    """ % {'name':name, 'food':food}

In this sense, you can use string formatting in Python for simple templating. That's about as lightweight as it gets.

If you want to go a bit deeper, Jinja2 is the most "designer friendly" (read: simple) templating engine in the opinion of many.

You can also look into Mako and Genshi. Ultimately, the choice is yours (what has the features you'd like and integrates nicely with your system).