Calling outside subs and modules in Template Toolkit without Plugins?

Question

I am trying to call an outside Perl module in a Template Toolkit .tt file. The module I want to use is Util, and I want to call Util::prettify_date

Answer 1

Have you tried useing the module in a [% PERL %] block?

Now, I personally would write a plugin which relays, say, a MyOrg::Plugin::Util->prettify_date to Util::prettify_date after getting rid of the first argument. You can automate the creation of these methods as well:

my @to_proxy = qw( prettify_date );

sub new {
    my $class = shift;

    {
        no strict 'refs';
        for my $sub ( @to_proxy) {
            *{"${class}::${sub}"} = sub {
                my $self = shift;
                return "My::Util::$sub"->( @_ );
            }
        }
    }
    bless {} => $class;
}