You can compile and fill a large number of template definitions from the
command line in one step using
cheetah fill. This compiles the template
in memory; it does not save the .py template module to disk. Instead it
writes a finished output file, which has the extension
.html by default.
All the options to
cheetah compile work the same way here, and there are
also a couple additional options:
--env : put the environment in the searchList --pickle FILE : unpickle FILE and put that object in the searchList
Because you can't provide a searchList on the command line, the
templates must either contain or inherit all the variables it needs,
or use the
--pickle options to
provide additional variables.
cheetah fill a.tmpl : writes a.html cheetah fill a.tmpl b.tmpl : writes a.html and b.html cheetah f --oext txt a : writes a.txt (from a.tmpl)
--env may have security or reliability implications because the
environment normally contains lots of variables you inherited rather than
defining yourself. If any of these variables override any of yours (say a
#def), you will get incorrect output, may reveal private information,
and may get an exception due to the variable being an unexpected type
(environmental variables are always strings). Your calling program may wish
to clear out the environment before setting environmental variables for the
There are two other differences between ``cheetah compile'' and ``cheetah fill''. Cheetah doesn't create __init__.py files when creating directories in fill mode. Also, the source filenames don't have to be identifiers.