use strict;
use HTML::Template;
use Data::Dumper;

# just a simple way to try both test cases
my $page = (shift) ? 'home' : 'articles';

my $html     = do { local $/; <DATA> };
my $template = HTML::Template->new(scalarref => \$html);

my $articles = [
   { title => q|Title 1|,
     body  => q|blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah|,
   },
   { title => q|Title 2|,
     body  => q|blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah|,
   },
   { title => q|Title 3|,
     body  => q|blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah|,
   },
   { title => q|Title 4|,
     body  => q|blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah|,
   },
];

$template->param(
   class    => $page,
   articles => ('home' eq $page) ? [(@$articles)[0..1]] : $articles,
);


print $template->output();

__DATA__
<table class="<tmpl_var name=class>">
<tmpl_loop name="articles">
<tr>
 <td><tmpl_var name="title"></td>
 <td><tmpl_var name="body"></td>
</tr>
</tmpl_loop>