tdom

A 🤘 rockin’ t-string HTML templating system for Python 3.14.

Installation

Just run:

pip install tdom

Python 3.14 isn’t out yet, but you can use Astral’s uv to easily try tdom in a Python 3.14 environment:

uv run --with tdom --python 3.14 python

Usage

tdom leverages Python 3.14’s new t-strings feature to provide a powerful HTML templating system that feels familiar if you’ve used JSX, Jinja2, or Django templates.

T-strings work just like f-strings but use a t prefix and create Template objects instead of strings.

Once you have a Template, you can call this package’s html() function to convert it into a tree of Node objects that represent your HTML structure. From there, you can render it to a string, manipulate it programmatically, or compose it with other templates for maximum flexibility.

Getting Started

Import the html function and start creating templates:

from tdom import html
greeting = html(t"<h1>Hello, World!</h1>")
print(type(greeting))  # <class 'tdom.nodes.Element'>
print(greeting)  # <h1>Hello, World!</h1>

Variable Interpolation

Just like f-strings, you can interpolate (substitute) variables directly into your templates:

name = "Alice"
age = 30
user_info = html(t"<p>Hello, {name}! You are {age} years old.</p>")
print(user_info)  # <p>Hello, Alice! You are 30 years old.</p>

The html() function ensures that interpolated values are automatically escaped to prevent XSS attacks:

user_name = "<script>alert('owned')</script>"
safe_output = html(t"<p>Hello, {user_name}!</p>")
print(safe_output)  # <p>Hello, &lt;script&gt;alert('owned')&lt;/script&gt;!</p>

Attribute Substitution

The html() function provides a number of convenient ways to define HTML attributes.

Direct Attribute Values

You can place values directly in attribute positions:

url = "https://example.com"
link = html(t'<a href="{url}">Visit our site</a>')
# <a href="https://example.com">Visit our site</a>

You don’t have to wrap your attribute values in quotes:

element_id = "my-button"
button = html(t"<button id={element_id}>Click me</button>")
# <button id="my-button">Click me</button>

Boolean attributes are supported too. Just use a boolean value in the attribute position:

form_button = html(t"<button disabled={True} hidden={False}>Submit</button>")
# <button disabled>Submit</button>

The class Attribute

The class attribute has special handling to make it easy to combine multiple classes from different sources. The simplest way is to provide a list of class names:

classes = ["btn", "btn-primary", "active"]
button = html(t'<button class="{classes}">Click me</button>')
# <button class="btn btn-primary active">Click me</button>

For flexibility, you can also provide a list of strings, dictionaries, or a mix of both:

classes = ["btn", "btn-primary", {"active": True}, None, False and "disabled"]
button = html(t'<button class="{classes}">Click me</button>')
# <button class="btn btn-primary active">Click me</button>

See the classnames() helper function for more information on how class names are combined.

The style Attribute

In addition to strings, you can also provide a dictionary of CSS properties and values for the style attribute:

# Style attributes from dictionaries
styles = {"color": "red", "font-weight": "bold", "margin": "10px"}
styled = html(t"<p style={styles}>Important text</p>")
# <p style="color: red; font-weight: bold; margin: 10px">Important text</p>

The data and aria Attributes

The data and aria attributes also have special handling to convert dictionary keys to the appropriate attribute names:

data_attrs = {"user-id": 123, "role": "admin"}
aria_attrs = {"label": "Close dialog", "hidden": True}
element = html(t"<div data={data_attrs} aria={aria_attrs}>Content</div>")
# <div data-user-id="123" data-role="admin" aria-label="Close dialog"
# aria-hidden="true">Content</div>

Note that boolean values in aria attributes are converted to "true" or "false" as per the ARIA specification.

Attribute Spreading

It’s possible to specify multiple attributes at once by using a dictionary and spreading it into an element using curly braces:

attrs = {"href": "https://example.com", "target": "_blank"}
link = html(t"<a {attrs}>External link</a>")
# <a href="https://example.com" target="_blank">External link</a>

You can also combine spreading with individual attributes:

base_attrs = {"id": "my-link"}
target = "_blank"
link = html(t'<a {base_attrs} target="{target}">Link</a>')
# <a id="my-link" target="_blank">Link</a>

Special attributes likes class behave as expected when combined with spreading:

classes = ["btn", {"active": True}]
attrs = {"class": classes, "id": "act_now", "data": {"wow": "such-attr"}}
button = html(t'<button {attrs}>Click me</button>')
# <button class="btn active" id="act_now" data-wow="such-attr">Click me</button>

Conditional Rendering

You can use Python’s conditional expressions for dynamic content:

is_logged_in = True
user_content = t"<span>Welcome back!</span>"
guest_content = t"<a href='/login'>Please log in</a>"
header = html(t"<div>{user_content if is_logged_in else guest_content}</div>")
# <div><span>Welcome back!</span></div>

Short-circuit evaluation is also supported for conditionally including elements:

show_warning = False
warning = t'<div class="alert">Warning message</div>'
page = html(t"<main>{show_warning and warning}</main>")
# <main></main>

Lists and Iteration

Generate repeated elements using list comprehensions:

fruits = ["Apple", "Banana", "Cherry"]
fruit_list = html(t"<ul>{[t'<li>{fruit}</li>' for fruit in fruits]}</ul>")
# <ul><li>Apple</li><li>Banana</li><li>Cherry</li></ul>

Raw HTML Injection

The tdom package provides several ways to include trusted raw HTML content in your templates. This is useful when you have HTML content that you know is safe and do not wish to escape.

Under the hood, tdom builds on top of the familiar MarkupSafe library to handle trusted HTML content. If you’ve used Flask, Jinja2, or similar libraries, this will feel very familiar.

The Markup class from MarkupSafe is available for use:

from tdom import html, Markup

trusted_html = Markup("<strong>This is safe HTML</strong>")
content = html(t"<div>{trusted_html}</div>")
# <div><strong>This is safe HTML</strong></div>

As a convenience, tdom also supports a :safe format specifier that marks a string as safe HTML:

trusted_html = "<em>Emphasized text</em>"
page = html(t"<p>Here is some {trusted_html:safe} content.</p>")
# <p>Here is some <em>Emphasized text</em> content.</p>

For interoperability with other templating libraries, any object that implements a __html__ method will be treated as safe HTML. Many popular libraries (including MarkupSafe and Django) use this convention:

class SafeWidget:
    def __html__(self):
        return "<button>Custom Widget</button>"

page = html(t"<div>My widget: {SafeWidget()}</div>")
# <div>My widget: <button>Custom Widget</button></div>

You can also explicitly mark a string as “unsafe” using the :unsafe format specifier. This forces the string to be escaped, even if it would normally be treated as safe:

from tdom import html, Markup
trusted_html = Markup("<strong>This is safe HTML</strong>")
page = html(t"<div>{trusted_html:unsafe}</div>")
# <div>&lt;strong&gt;This is safe HTML&lt;/strong&gt;</div>

Template Composition

You can easily combine multiple templates and create reusable components.

Template nesting is straightforward:

content = t"<h1>My Site</h1>"
page = html(t"<div>{content}</div>")
# <div><h1>My Site</h1></div>

In the example above, content is a Template object that gets correctly parsed and embedded within the outer template. You can also explicitly call html() on nested templates if you prefer:

content = html(t"<h1>My Site</h1>")
page = html(t"<div>{content}</div>")
# <div><h1>My Site</h1></div>

The result is the same either way.

Component Functions

You can create reusable component functions that generate templates with dynamic content and attributes. Use these like custom HTML elements in your templates.

The basic form of all component functions is:

from typing import Any, Iterable
from tdom import Node, html

def MyComponent(children: Iterable[Node], **attrs: Any) -> Node:
    return html(t"<div {attrs}>Cool: {children}</div>")

To invoke your component within an HTML template, use the special <{ComponentName} ... /> syntax:

result = html(t"<{MyComponent} id='comp1'>Hello, Component!</{MyComponent}>")
# <div id="comp1">Cool: Hello, Component!</div>

Because attributes are passed as keyword arguments, you can explicitly provide type hints for better editor support:

from typing import Any
from tdom import Node, html

def Link(*, href: str, text: str, data_value: int, **attrs: Any) -> Node:
    return html(t'<a href="{href}" {attrs}>{text}: {data_value}</a>')

result = html(t'<{Link} href="https://example.com" text="Example" data-value={42} target="_blank" />')
# <a href="https://example.com" target="_blank">Example: 42</a>

Note that attributes with hyphens (like data-value) are converted to underscores (data_value) in the function signature.

Component functions build children and can return any type of value; the returned value will be treated exactly as if it were placed directly in a child position in the template.

Among other things, this means you can return a Template directly from a component function:

def Greeting(name: str) -> Template:
    return t"<h1>Hello, {name}!</h1>"

result = html(t"<{Greeting} name='Alice' />")
# <h1>Hello, Alice!</h1>

You may also return an iterable:

from typing import Iterable

def Items() -> Iterable[Template]:
    return [t"<li>first</li>", t"<li>second</li>"]

result = html(t"<ul><{Items} /></ul>")
# <ul><li>first</li><li>second</li></ul>

If you prefer, you can use explicit fragment syntax to wrap multiple elements in a Fragment:

def Items() -> Node:
    return html(t'<><li>first</li><li>second</li></>')

result = html(t'<ul><{Items} /></ul>')
# <ul><li>first</li><li>second</li></ul>

This is not required, but it can make your intent clearer.

Class-based components

Component functions are great for simple use cases, but for more complex components you may want to use a class-based approach. Remember that the component invocation syntax (<{ComponentName} ... />) works with any callable. That includes the __init__ method or __call__ method of a class.

One particularly useful pattern is to build class-based components with dataclasses:

from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from typing import Any, Iterable
from tdom import Node, html

@dataclass
class Card:
    children: Iterable[Node]
    title: str
    subtitle: str | None = None

    def __call__(self) -> Node:
        return html(t"""
            <div class='card'>
                <h2>{self.title}</h2>
                {self.subtitle and t'<h3>{self.subtitle}</h3>'}
                <div class="content">{self.children}</div>
            </div>
        """)

result = html(t"<{Card} title='My Card' subtitle='A subtitle'><p>Card content</p></{Card}>")
# <div class='card'>
#     <h2>My Card</h2>
#     <h3>A subtitle</h3>
#     <div class="content"><p>Card content</p></div>
# </div>

This approach allows you to encapsulate component logic and state within a class, making it easier to manage complex components.

SVG Support

TODO: say more about SVG support

Context

TODO: implement context feature

The tdom Module

Working with Node Objects

TODO: say more about working with them directly

The classnames() Helper

TODO: say more about it

Utilities

TODO: say more about them