[Zope] Weirdness with <dtml-in> and external methods.

[Tony McDonald]

Hi all,
I have a situation where I pass some variables *from* an external 
method, to some DTML, which then returns it to the external method 
(which *then* presents the finished product to the user). Sounds 
convoluted, and it is, but it's the only way I can think of that will 
let me do initial processing (for speed), but will allow me to change 
the actual layout displayed to the user without messing with external 
products (it also seems more flexible).

As an example, here's a snippet from my external method 
(make_html3.py) that will generate a <P> tag around some content, 
given that the 'type' of element is text (I have quite a few, such as 
'item' and 'modulecontributor')

if thetag == 'text':
	if theclass: # does it have a class? used for Cascading Style Sheets.
		html.seq_prefix = "<P CLASS='%s'>" % theclass
		html = "<P CLASS='%s'>%s" % (theclass, content)
#		html = self.Actors.RENDER.dopara(theclass=theclass, 
content=content)
	else:
	html = "<P>%s" % content
	return html

If the commented line is removed, and I comment the preceding one, my 
DTML method (dopara) gets called;

<table><tr><td bgcolor=silver><dtml-var content></td></tr></table>
and all is well.

Now all is fine and dandy *until* I want to use <dtml-in constructs.
I want to do this because for one of my 'type's is an email address 
for data on module contributors (title, address, tel etc.)

I've tried with full ZSQL queries and they didn't work (but they DO 
work if I try them from
within the Zope framework). I ended up with this DTML, called 
modulecontributor. SQLPhone is a folder
where I'm putting my SQL methods, one of which is info_from_email.

<table>
<tr><td colspan=2 bgcolor=silver>This data is being dynamically 
generated from a database</td></tr>
<dtml-in "Actors.SQLPhone.info_from_email(email=content)">
<tr>
<td><dtml-var Title> <dtml-var Initials> <dtml-var Surname><td><td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Department:</td><td><dtml-var Department_Name></td>
</tr>
</dtml-in>
</table>

the relevant Python looks like this

if theclass == 'modulecontributor':
	html = self.Actors.RENDER.modulecontributor(content=content)
	return html

and the traceback :( looks like this...

<!--
Traceback (innermost last):
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publis 
h.py, line 256, in publish_module
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publis 
h.py, line 161, in publish
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/ZPublisher/mapply 
.py, line 154, in mapply
     (Object: cascade2)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publis 
h.py, line 98, in call_object
     (Object: cascade2)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/OFS/DTMLMethod.py 
, line 150, in __call__
     (Object: cascade2)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/OFS/DTMLMethod.py 
, line 145, in __call__
     (Object: cascade2)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_String.py, line 502, in __call__
     (Object: cascade2)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_In.py, line 689, in renderwob
     (Object: Actors.SQL.get_children(parent=child))
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/OFS/DTMLMethod.py 
, line 140, in __call__
     (Object: show_html)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_String.py, line 502, in __call__
     (Object: show_html)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_In.py, line 689, in renderwob
     (Object: Actors.SQL.get_entry(tag_id=child))
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_Util.py, line 315, in eval
     (Object: make_html(content, src, thetag, level, tagclass, header))
   File <string>, line 0, in ?
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/Products/External 
Method/ExternalMethod.py, line 259, in __call__
     (Object: make_html)
     (Info: ((A.M.McDonald', None, 'topic', None, 'modulecontributor', 
None), {}, None))
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/Products/External 
Method/ExternalMethod.py, line 254, in __call__
     (Object: make_html)
     (Info: (('P.M.Bradley', None, 'topic', None, 'modulecontributor', 
None), {}, None))
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/Extensions/make_html3.py, 
line 19, in make_html
     (Object: ElementWithAttributes)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/OFS/DTMLDocument. 
py, line 162, in __call__
     (Object: modulecontributor)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_String.py, line 502, in __call__
     (Object: modulecontributor)
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_In.py, line 631, in renderwob
     (Object: info_from_email(email=content))
   File 
/home/nnle/Zope-2.0.0b1-solaris-2.6-sparc/lib/python/DocumentTemplate/ 
DT_Util.py, line 315, in eval
     (Object: info_from_email(email=content))
   File <string>, line 0, in ?
NameError: (see above)

-->

I reduced things down until the <dtml-in> was looping over a token 
property. Still no joy.

Any ideas?

tone.
------
Dr Tony McDonald,  FMCC, Networked Learning Environments Project 
http://nle.ncl.ac.uk/
The Medical School, Newcastle University Tel: +44 191 222 5888
Fingerprint: 3450 876D FA41 B926 D3DD  F8C3 F2D0 C3B9 8B38 18A2