Documentation
   Overview
   Why Clearsilver?
   Clearsilver Basics
     HDF Dataset
     Template Syntax
       Expressions
       Macros
       Functions
     CGI Kit
       Config Vars
     FAQ
   API Reference
     API Concepts
     C API
     Python API
       Introduction
     Perl API
     Java API
   Tools
     odb.py
   Comparison with PHP, ASP, JSP
   Comparison with XML/XSLT

Overview

"... what the world needs now is another template system ..." -- Cracker, new verse to Teen Angst

ClearSilver is a fast, powerful, and language-neutral template system. It is designed to make it easy to create template driven static or dynamic websites.

ClearSilver is first and foremost designed to be extremely fast. It is coded completely in C and exported to your script language of choice (i.e. Python, Perl). As a result, it is notably faster than template systems written in a script language. However, its design has additional benefits. It is also one of the only template systems available which allows you to easily mix-and-match multiple programming languages with the same templates, even on the same page. This allows you to optimize your website by writing C-modules to handle speed-sensitive sections, while leaving the majority of your site in easy to write script code.

Features

Fast, simple, language-neutral template system.
Modules currently available for C, Python, Perl.
Powerful template language supports variable substitution, template includes, conditionals, loops, macros, recursive macros, local variables.
Full CGI-handling kit with support for CGI/1.1, RFC 2388, automatic gzip compression, and other CGI standards.
"Pipelined" rendering model stores rendering data in an intermediate static dataset and makes debugging easier.
Separate your web application from its appearance.
Allow non-programmers access to edit parts of the site appearance.
Open Source and non-restrictive license