================================================== The Django template language: For template authors ================================================== .. admonition:: About this document This document explains the language syntax of the Django template system. If you're looking for a more technical perspective on how it works and how to extend it, see `The Django template language: For Python programmers`_. Django's template language is designed to strike a balance between power and ease. It's designed to feel comfortable to those used to working with HTML. If you have any exposure to other text-based template languages, such as Smarty_ or CheetahTemplate_, you should feel right at home with Django's templates. .. admonition:: Philosophy If you have a background in programming, or if you're used to languages like PHP which mix programming code directly into HTML, you'll want to bear in mind that the Django template system is not simply Python embedded into HTML. This is by design: the template system is meant to express presentation, not program logic. The Django template system provides tags which function similarly to some programming constructs -- an ``{% if %}`` tag for boolean tests, a ``{% for %}`` tag for looping, etc. -- but these are not simply executed as the corresponding Python code, and the template system will not execute arbitrary Python expressions. Only the tags, filters and syntax listed below are supported by default (although you can add `your own extensions`_ to the template language as needed). .. _`The Django template language: For Python programmers`: ../templates_python/ .. _Smarty: http://smarty.php.net/ .. _CheetahTemplate: http://www.cheetahtemplate.org/ .. _your own extensions: ../templates_python/#extending-the-template-system Templates ========= A template is simply a text file. It can generate any text-based format (HTML, XML, CSV, etc.). A template contains **variables**, which get replaced with values when the template is evaluated, and **tags**, which control the logic of the template. Below is a minimal template that illustrates a few basics. Each element will be explained later in this document.:: {% extends "base_generic.html" %} {% block title %}{{ section.title }}{% endblock %} {% block content %}

{{ section.title }}

{% for story in story_list %}

{{ story.headline|upper }}

{{ story.tease|truncatewords:"100" }}

{% endfor %} {% endblock %} .. admonition:: Philosophy Why use a text-based template instead of an XML-based one (like Zope's TAL)? We wanted Django's template language to be usable for more than just XML/HTML templates. At World Online, we use it for e-mails, JavaScript and CSV. You can use the template language for any text-based format. Oh, and one more thing: Making humans edit XML is sadistic! Variables ========= Variables look like this: ``{{ variable }}``. When the template engine encounters a variable, it evaluates that variable and replaces it with the result. Use a dot (``.``) to access attributes of a variable. .. admonition:: Behind the scenes Technically, when the template system encounters a dot, it tries the following lookups, in this order: * Dictionary lookup * Attribute lookup * Method call * List-index lookup In the above example, ``{{ section.title }}`` will be replaced with the ``title`` attribute of the ``section`` object. If you use a variable that doesn't exist, the template system will insert the value of the ``TEMPLATE_STRING_IF_INVALID`` setting, which is set to ``''`` (the empty string) by default. See `Using the built-in reference`_, below, for help on finding what variables are available in a given template. Filters ======= You can modify variables for display by using **filters**. Filters look like this: ``{{ name|lower }}``. This displays the value of the ``{{ name }}`` variable after being filtered through the ``lower`` filter, which converts text to lowercase. Use a pipe (``|``) to apply a filter. Filters can be "chained." The output of one filter is applied to the next. ``{{ text|escape|linebreaks }}`` is a common idiom for escaping text contents, then converting line breaks to ``

`` tags. Some filters take arguments. A filter argument looks like this: ``{{ bio|truncatewords:30 }}``. This will display the first 30 words of the ``bio`` variable. Filter arguments that contain spaces must be quoted; for example, to join a list with commas and spaced you'd use ``{{ list|join:", " }}``. The `Built-in filter reference`_ below describes all the built-in filters. Tags ==== Tags look like this: ``{% tag %}``. Tags are more complex than variables: Some create text in the output, some control flow by performing loops or logic, and some load external information into the template to be used by later variables. Some tags require beginning and ending tags (i.e. ``{% tag %} ... tag contents ... {% endtag %}``). The `Built-in tag reference`_ below describes all the built-in tags. You can create your own tags, if you know how to write Python code. Comments ======== To comment-out part of a line in a template, use the comment syntax: ``{# #}``. For example, this template would render as ``'hello'``:: {# greeting #}hello A comment can contain any template code, invalid or not. For example:: {# {% if foo %}bar{% else %} #} This syntax can only be used for single-line comments (no newlines are permitted between the ``{#`` and ``#}`` delimiters). If you need to comment out a multiline portion of the template, see the ``comment`` tag, below__. __ comment_ Template inheritance ==================== The most powerful -- and thus the most complex -- part of Django's template engine is template inheritance. Template inheritance allows you to build a base "skeleton" template that contains all the common elements of your site and defines **blocks** that child templates can override. It's easiest to understand template inheritance by starting with an example:: {% block title %}My amazing site{% endblock %}

{% block content %}{% endblock %}
This template, which we'll call ``base.html``, defines a simple HTML skeleton document that you might use for a simple two-column page. It's the job of "child" templates to fill the empty blocks with content. In this example, the ``{% block %}`` tag defines three blocks that child templates can fill in. All the ``block`` tag does is to tell the template engine that a child template may override those portions of the template. A child template might look like this:: {% extends "base.html" %} {% block title %}My amazing blog{% endblock %} {% block content %} {% for entry in blog_entries %}

{{ entry.title }}

{{ entry.body }}

{% endfor %} {% endblock %} The ``{% extends %}`` tag is the key here. It tells the template engine that this template "extends" another template. When the template system evaluates this template, first it locates the parent -- in this case, "base.html". At that point, the template engine will notice the three ``{% block %}`` tags in ``base.html`` and replace those blocks with the contents of the child template. Depending on the value of ``blog_entries``, the output might look like:: My amazing blog

Entry one

This is my first entry.

Entry two

This is my second entry.

Note that since the child template didn't define the ``sidebar`` block, the value from the parent template is used instead. Content within a ``{% block %}`` tag in a parent template is always used as a fallback. You can use as many levels of inheritance as needed. One common way of using inheritance is the following three-level approach: * Create a ``base.html`` template that holds the main look-and-feel of your site. * Create a ``base_SECTIONNAME.html`` template for each "section" of your site. For example, ``base_news.html``, ``base_sports.html``. These templates all extend ``base.html`` and include section-specific styles/design. * Create individual templates for each type of page, such as a news article or blog entry. These templates extend the appropriate section template. This approach maximizes code reuse and makes it easy to add items to shared content areas, such as section-wide navigation. Here are some tips for working with inheritance: * If you use ``{% extends %}`` in a template, it must be the first template tag in that template. Template inheritance won't work, otherwise. * More ``{% block %}`` tags in your base templates are better. Remember, child templates don't have to define all parent blocks, so you can fill in reasonable defaults in a number of blocks, then only define the ones you need later. It's better to have more hooks than fewer hooks. * If you find yourself duplicating content in a number of templates, it probably means you should move that content to a ``{% block %}`` in a parent template. * If you need to get the content of the block from the parent template, the ``{{ block.super }}`` variable will do the trick. This is useful if you want to add to the contents of a parent block instead of completely overriding it. Data inserted using ``{{ block.super }}`` will not be automatically escaped (see the `next section`_), since it was already escaped, if necessary, in the parent template. * For extra readability, you can optionally give a *name* to your ``{% endblock %}`` tag. For example:: {% block content %} ... {% endblock content %} In larger templates, this technique helps you see which ``{% block %}`` tags are being closed. Finally, note that you can't define multiple ``{% block %}`` tags with the same name in the same template. This limitation exists because a block tag works in "both" directions. That is, a block tag doesn't just provide a hole to fill -- it also defines the content that fills the hole in the *parent*. If there were two similarly-named ``{% block %}`` tags in a template, that template's parent wouldn't know which one of the blocks' content to use. .. _next section: #automatic-html-escaping Automatic HTML escaping ======================= **New in Django development version** When generating HTML from templates, there's always a risk that a variable will include characters that affect the resulting HTML. For example, consider this template fragment:: Hello, {{ name }}. At first, this seems like a harmless way to display a user's name, but consider what would happen if the user entered his name as this:: With this name value, the template would be rendered as:: Hello, ...which means the browser would pop-up a JavaScript alert box! Similarly, what if the name contained a ``'<'`` symbol, like this? username That would result in a rendered template like this:: Hello, username ...which, in turn, would result in the remainder of the Web page being bolded! Clearly, user-submitted data shouldn't be trusted blindly and inserted directly into your Web pages, because a malicious user could use this kind of hole to do potentially bad things. This type of security exploit is called a `Cross Site Scripting`_ (XSS) attack. To avoid this problem, you have two options: * One, you can make sure to run each untrusted variable through the ``escape`` filter (documented below), which converts potentially harmful HTML characters to unharmful ones. This was the default solution in Django for its first few years, but the problem is that it puts the onus on *you*, the developer / template author, to ensure you're escaping everything. It's easy to forget to escape data. * Two, you can take advantage of Django's automatic HTML escaping. The remainder of this section describes how auto-escaping works. By default in the Django development version, every template automatically escapes the output of every variable tag. Specifically, these five characters are escaped: * ``<`` is converted to ``<`` * ``>`` is converted to ``>`` * ``'`` (single quote) is converted to ``'`` * ``"`` (double quote) is converted to ``"`` * ``&`` is converted to ``&`` Again, we stress that this behavior is on by default. If you're using Django's template system, you're protected. .. _Cross Site Scripting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting How to turn it off ------------------ If you don't want data to be auto-escaped, on a per-site, per-template level or per-variable level, you can turn it off in several ways. Why would you want to turn it off? Because sometimes, template variables contain data that you *intend* to be rendered as raw HTML, in which case you don't want their contents to be escaped. For example, you might store a blob of HTML in your database and want to embed that directly into your template. Or, you might be using Django's template system to produce text that is *not* HTML -- like an e-mail message, for instance. For individual variables ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To disable auto-escaping for an individual variable, use the ``safe`` filter:: This will be escaped: {{ data }} This will not be escaped: {{ data|safe }} Think of *safe* as shorthand for *safe from further escaping* or *can be safely interpreted as HTML*. In this example, if ``data`` contains ``''``, the output will be:: This will be escaped: <b> This will not be escaped: For template blocks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To control auto-escaping for a template, wrap the template (or just a particular section of the template) in the ``autoescape`` tag, like so:: {% autoescape off %} Hello {{ name }} {% endautoescape %} The ``autoescape`` tag takes either ``on`` or ``off`` as its argument. At times, you might want to force auto-escaping when it would otherwise be disabled. Here is an example template:: Auto-escaping is on by default. Hello {{ name }} {% autoescape off %} This will not be auto-escaped: {{ data }}. Nor this: {{ other_data }} {% autoescape on %} Auto-escaping applies again: {{ name }} {% endautoescape %} {% endautoescape %} The auto-escaping tag passes its effect onto templates that extend the current one as well as templates included via the ``include`` tag, just like all block tags. For example:: # base.html {% autoescape off %}

{% block title %}{% endblock %}

{% block content %} {% endblock %} {% endautoescape %} # child.html {% extends "base.html" %} {% block title %}This & that{% endblock %} {% block content %}{{ greeting }}{% endblock %} Because auto-escaping is turned off in the base template, it will also be turned off in the child template, resulting in the following rendered HTML when the ``greeting`` variable contains the string ``Hello!``::

This & that

Hello! Notes ----- Generally, template authors don't need to worry about auto-escaping very much. Developers on the Python side (people writing views and custom filters) need to think about the cases in which data shouldn't be escaped, and mark data appropriately, so things Just Work in the template. If you're creating a template that might be used in situations where you're not sure whether auto-escaping is enabled, then add an ``escape`` filter to any variable that needs escaping. When auto-escaping is on, there's no danger of the ``escape`` filter *double-escaping* data -- the ``escape`` filter does not affect auto-escaped variables. String literals and automatic escaping -------------------------------------- As we mentioned earlier, filter arguments can be strings:: {{ data|default:"This is a string literal." }} All string literals are inserted **without** any automatic escaping into the template -- they act as if they were all passed through the ``safe`` filter. The reasoning behind this is that the template author is in control of what goes into the string literal, so they can make sure the text is correctly escaped when the template is written. This means you would write :: {{ data|default:"3 < 2" }} ...rather than :: {{ data|default:"3 < 2" }} <-- Bad! Don't do this. This doesn't affect what happens to data coming from the variable itself. The variable's contents are still automatically escaped, if necessary, because they're beyond the control of the template author. Using the built-in reference ============================ Django's admin interface includes a complete reference of all template tags and filters available for a given site. To see it, go to your admin interface and click the "Documentation" link in the upper right of the page. The reference is divided into 4 sections: tags, filters, models, and views. The **tags** and **filters** sections describe all the built-in tags (in fact, the tag and filter references below come directly from those pages) as well as any custom tag or filter libraries available. The **views** page is the most valuable. Each URL in your site has a separate entry here, and clicking on a URL will show you: * The name of the view function that generates that view. * A short description of what the view does. * The **context**, or a list of variables available in the view's template. * The name of the template or templates that are used for that view. Each view documentation page also has a bookmarklet that you can use to jump from any page to the documentation page for that view. Because Django-powered sites usually use database objects, the **models** section of the documentation page describes each type of object in the system along with all the fields available on that object. Taken together, the documentation pages should tell you every tag, filter, variable and object available to you in a given template. Custom tag and filter libraries =============================== Certain applications provide custom tag and filter libraries. To access them in a template, use the ``{% load %}`` tag:: {% load comments %} {% comment_form for blogs.entries entry.id with is_public yes %} In the above, the ``load`` tag loads the ``comments`` tag library, which then makes the ``comment_form`` tag available for use. Consult the documentation area in your admin to find the list of custom libraries in your installation. The ``{% load %}`` tag can take multiple library names, separated by spaces. Example:: {% load comments i18n %} Custom libraries and template inheritance ----------------------------------------- When you load a custom tag or filter library, the tags/filters are only made available to the current template -- not any parent or child templates along the template-inheritance path. For example, if a template ``foo.html`` has ``{% load comments %}``, a child template (e.g., one that has ``{% extends "foo.html" %}``) will *not* have access to the comments template tags and filters. The child template is responsible for its own ``{% load comments %}``. This is a feature for the sake of maintainability and sanity. Built-in tag and filter reference ================================= For those without an admin site available, reference for the stock tags and filters follows. Because Django is highly customizable, the reference in your admin should be considered the final word on what tags and filters are available, and what they do. Built-in tag reference ---------------------- autoescape ~~~~~~~~~~ **New in Django development version** Control the current auto-escaping behavior. This tag takes either ``on`` or ``off`` as an argument and that determines whether auto-escaping is in effect inside the block. When auto-escaping is in effect, all variable content has HTML escaping applied to it before placing the result into the output (but after any filters have been applied). This is equivalent to manually applying the ``escape`` filter to each variable. The only exceptions are variables that are already marked as "safe" from escaping, either by the code that populated the variable, or because it has had the ``safe`` or ``escape`` filters applied. block ~~~~~ Define a block that can be overridden by child templates. See `Template inheritance`_ for more information. comment ~~~~~~~ Ignore everything between ``{% comment %}`` and ``{% endcomment %}`` cycle ~~~~~ **Changed in Django development version** Cycle among the given strings or variables each time this tag is encountered. Within a loop, cycles among the given strings/variables each time through the loop:: {% for o in some_list %} ... {% endfor %} Outside of a loop, give the values a unique name the first time you call it, then use that name each successive time through:: ... ... ... You can use any number of values, separated by spaces. Values enclosed in single (') or double quotes (") are treated as string literals, while values without quotes are assumed to refer to context variables. You can also separate values with commas:: {% cycle row1,row2,row3 %} In this syntax, each value will be interpreted as literal text. The comma-based syntax exists for backwards-compatibility, and should not be used for new projects. debug ~~~~~ Output a whole load of debugging information, including the current context and imported modules. extends ~~~~~~~ Signal that this template extends a parent template. This tag can be used in two ways: * ``{% extends "base.html" %}`` (with quotes) uses the literal value ``"base.html"`` as the name of the parent template to extend. * ``{% extends variable %}`` uses the value of ``variable``. If the variable evaluates to a string, Django will use that string as the name of the parent template. If the variable evaluates to a ``Template`` object, Django will use that object as the parent template. See `Template inheritance`_ for more information. filter ~~~~~~ Filter the contents of the variable through variable filters. Filters can also be piped through each other, and they can have arguments -- just like in variable syntax. Sample usage:: {% filter force_escape|lower %} This text will be HTML-escaped, and will appear in all lowercase. {% endfilter %} firstof ~~~~~~~ Outputs the first variable passed that is not False. Outputs nothing if all the passed variables are False. Sample usage:: {% firstof var1 var2 var3 %} This is equivalent to:: {% if var1 %} {{ var1 }} {% else %}{% if var2 %} {{ var2 }} {% else %}{% if var3 %} {{ var3 }} {% endif %}{% endif %}{% endif %} You can also use a literal string as a fallback value in case all passed variables are False:: {% firstof var1 var2 var3 "fallback value" %} for ~~~ Loop over each item in an array. For example, to display a list of athletes provided in ``athlete_list``::
    {% for athlete in athlete_list %}
  • {{ athlete.name }}
  • {% endfor %}
You can loop over a list in reverse by using ``{% for obj in list reversed %}``. **New in Django development version** If you need to loop over a list of lists, you can unpack the values in eachs sub-list into a set of known names. For example, if your context contains a list of (x,y) coordinates called ``points``, you could use the following to output the list of points:: {% for x, y in points %} There is a point at {{ x }},{{ y }} {% endfor %} This can also be useful if you need to access the items in a dictionary. For example, if your context contained a dictionary ``data``, the following would display the keys and values of the dictionary:: {% for key, value in data.items %} {{ key }}: {{ value }} {% endfor %} The for loop sets a number of variables available within the loop: ========================== ================================================ Variable Description ========================== ================================================ ``forloop.counter`` The current iteration of the loop (1-indexed) ``forloop.counter0`` The current iteration of the loop (0-indexed) ``forloop.revcounter`` The number of iterations from the end of the loop (1-indexed) ``forloop.revcounter0`` The number of iterations from the end of the loop (0-indexed) ``forloop.first`` True if this is the first time through the loop ``forloop.last`` True if this is the last time through the loop ``forloop.parentloop`` For nested loops, this is the loop "above" the current one ========================== ================================================ if ~~ The ``{% if %}`` tag evaluates a variable, and if that variable is "true" (i.e. exists, is not empty, and is not a false boolean value) the contents of the block are output:: {% if athlete_list %} Number of athletes: {{ athlete_list|length }} {% else %} No athletes. {% endif %} In the above, if ``athlete_list`` is not empty, the number of athletes will be displayed by the ``{{ athlete_list|length }}`` variable. As you can see, the ``if`` tag can take an optional ``{% else %}`` clause that will be displayed if the test fails. ``if`` tags may use ``and``, ``or`` or ``not`` to test a number of variables or to negate a given variable:: {% if athlete_list and coach_list %} Both athletes and coaches are available. {% endif %} {% if not athlete_list %} There are no athletes. {% endif %} {% if athlete_list or coach_list %} There are some athletes or some coaches. {% endif %} {% if not athlete_list or coach_list %} There are no athletes or there are some coaches (OK, so writing English translations of boolean logic sounds stupid; it's not our fault). {% endif %} {% if athlete_list and not coach_list %} There are some athletes and absolutely no coaches. {% endif %} ``if`` tags don't allow ``and`` and ``or`` clauses within the same tag, because the order of logic would be ambiguous. For example, this is invalid:: {% if athlete_list and coach_list or cheerleader_list %} If you need to combine ``and`` and ``or`` to do advanced logic, just use nested ``if`` tags. For example:: {% if athlete_list %} {% if coach_list or cheerleader_list %} We have athletes, and either coaches or cheerleaders! {% endif %} {% endif %} Multiple uses of the same logical operator are fine, as long as you use the same operator. For example, this is valid:: {% if athlete_list or coach_list or parent_list or teacher_list %} ifchanged ~~~~~~~~~ Check if a value has changed from the last iteration of a loop. The 'ifchanged' block tag is used within a loop. It has two possible uses. 1. Checks its own rendered contents against its previous state and only displays the content if it has changed. For example, this displays a list of days, only displaying the month if it changes::

Archive for {{ year }}

{% for date in days %} {% ifchanged %}

{{ date|date:"F" }}

{% endifchanged %} {{ date|date:"j" }} {% endfor %} 2. If given a variable, check whether that variable has changed. For example, the following shows the date every time it changes, but only shows the hour if both the hour and the date have changed:: {% for date in days %} {% ifchanged date.date %} {{ date.date }} {% endifchanged %} {% ifchanged date.hour date.date %} {{ date.hour }} {% endifchanged %} {% endfor %} ifequal ~~~~~~~ Output the contents of the block if the two arguments equal each other. Example:: {% ifequal user.id comment.user_id %} ... {% endifequal %} As in the ``{% if %}`` tag, an ``{% else %}`` clause is optional. The arguments can be hard-coded strings, so the following is valid:: {% ifequal user.username "adrian" %} ... {% endifequal %} It is only possible to compare an argument to template variables or strings. You cannot check for equality with Python objects such as ``True`` or ``False``. If you need to test if something is true or false, use the ``if`` tag instead. ifnotequal ~~~~~~~~~~ Just like ``ifequal``, except it tests that the two arguments are not equal. include ~~~~~~~ Loads a template and renders it with the current context. This is a way of "including" other templates within a template. The template name can either be a variable or a hard-coded (quoted) string, in either single or double quotes. This example includes the contents of the template ``"foo/bar.html"``:: {% include "foo/bar.html" %} This example includes the contents of the template whose name is contained in the variable ``template_name``:: {% include template_name %} An included template is rendered with the context of the template that's including it. This example produces the output ``"Hello, John"``: * Context: variable ``person`` is set to ``"john"``. * Template:: {% include "name_snippet.html" %} * The ``name_snippet.html`` template:: Hello, {{ person }} See also: ``{% ssi %}``. load ~~~~ Load a custom template tag set. See `Custom tag and filter libraries`_ for more information. now ~~~ Display the date, formatted according to the given string. Uses the same format as PHP's ``date()`` function (http://php.net/date) with some custom extensions. Available format strings: ================ ======================================== ===================== Format character Description Example output ================ ======================================== ===================== a ``'a.m.'`` or ``'p.m.'`` (Note that ``'a.m.'`` this is slightly different than PHP's output, because this includes periods to match Associated Press style.) A ``'AM'`` or ``'PM'``. ``'AM'`` b Month, textual, 3 letters, lowercase. ``'jan'`` B Not implemented. d Day of the month, 2 digits with ``'01'`` to ``'31'`` leading zeros. D Day of the week, textual, 3 letters. ``'Fri'`` f Time, in 12-hour hours and minutes, ``'1'``, ``'1:30'`` with minutes left off if they're zero. Proprietary extension. F Month, textual, long. ``'January'`` g Hour, 12-hour format without leading ``'1'`` to ``'12'`` zeros. G Hour, 24-hour format without leading ``'0'`` to ``'23'`` zeros. h Hour, 12-hour format. ``'01'`` to ``'12'`` H Hour, 24-hour format. ``'00'`` to ``'23'`` i Minutes. ``'00'`` to ``'59'`` I Not implemented. j Day of the month without leading ``'1'`` to ``'31'`` zeros. l Day of the week, textual, long. ``'Friday'`` L Boolean for whether it's a leap year. ``True`` or ``False`` m Month, 2 digits with leading zeros. ``'01'`` to ``'12'`` M Month, textual, 3 letters. ``'Jan'`` n Month without leading zeros. ``'1'`` to ``'12'`` N Month abbreviation in Associated Press ``'Jan.'``, ``'Feb.'``, ``'March'``, ``'May'`` style. Proprietary extension. O Difference to Greenwich time in hours. ``'+0200'`` P Time, in 12-hour hours, minutes and ``'1 a.m.'``, ``'1:30 p.m.'``, ``'midnight'``, ``'noon'``, ``'12:30 p.m.'`` 'a.m.'/'p.m.', with minutes left off if they're zero and the special-case strings 'midnight' and 'noon' if appropriate. Proprietary extension. r RFC 2822 formatted date. ``'Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200'`` s Seconds, 2 digits with leading zeros. ``'00'`` to ``'59'`` S English ordinal suffix for day of the ``'st'``, ``'nd'``, ``'rd'`` or ``'th'`` month, 2 characters. t Number of days in the given month. ``28`` to ``31`` T Time zone of this machine. ``'EST'``, ``'MDT'`` U Not implemented. w Day of the week, digits without ``'0'`` (Sunday) to ``'6'`` (Saturday) leading zeros. W ISO-8601 week number of year, with ``1``, ``53`` weeks starting on Monday. y Year, 2 digits. ``'99'`` Y Year, 4 digits. ``'1999'`` z Day of the year. ``0`` to ``365`` Z Time zone offset in seconds. The ``-43200`` to ``43200`` offset for timezones west of UTC is always negative, and for those east of UTC is always positive. ================ ======================================== ===================== Example:: It is {% now "jS F Y H:i" %} Note that you can backslash-escape a format string if you want to use the "raw" value. In this example, "f" is backslash-escaped, because otherwise "f" is a format string that displays the time. The "o" doesn't need to be escaped, because it's not a format character:: It is the {% now "jS o\f F" %} This would display as "It is the 4th of September". regroup ~~~~~~~ Regroup a list of alike objects by a common attribute. This complex tag is best illustrated by use of an example: say that ``people`` is a list of people represented by dictionaries with ``first_name``, ``last_name``, and ``gender`` keys:: people = [ {'first_name': 'George', 'last_name': 'Bush', 'gender': 'Male'}, {'first_name': 'Bill', 'last_name': 'Clinton', 'gender': 'Male'}, {'first_name': 'Margaret', 'last_name': 'Thatcher', 'gender': 'Female'}, {'first_name': 'Condoleezza', 'last_name': 'Rice', 'gender': 'Female'}, {'first_name': 'Pat', 'last_name': 'Smith', 'gender': 'Unknown'}, ] ...and you'd like to display a hierarchical list that is ordered by gender, like this: * Male: * George Bush * Bill Clinton * Female: * Margaret Thatcher * Condoleezza Rice * Unknown: * Pat Smith You can use the ``{% regroup %}`` tag to group the list of people by gender. The following snippet of template code would accomplish this:: {% regroup people by gender as gender_list %}
    {% for gender in gender_list %}
  • {{ gender.grouper }}
      {% for item in gender.list %}
    • {{ item.first_name }} {{ item.last_name }}
    • {% endfor %}
  • {% endfor %}
Let's walk through this example. ``{% regroup %}`` takes three arguments: the list you want to regroup, the attribute to group by, and the name of the resulting list. Here, we're regrouping the ``people`` list by the ``gender`` attribute and calling the result ``gender_list``. ``{% regroup %}`` produces a list (in this case, ``gender_list``) of **group objects**. Each group object has two attributes: * ``grouper`` -- the item that was grouped by (e.g., the string "Male" or "Female"). * ``list`` -- a list of all items in this group (e.g., a list of all people with gender='Male'). Note that ``{% regroup %}`` does not order its input! Our example relies on the fact that the ``people`` list was ordered by ``gender`` in the first place. If the ``people`` list did *not* order its members by ``gender``, the regrouping would naively display more than one group for a single gender. For example, say the ``people`` list was set to this (note that the males are not grouped together):: people = [ {'first_name': 'Bill', 'last_name': 'Clinton', 'gender': 'Male'}, {'first_name': 'Pat', 'last_name': 'Smith', 'gender': 'Unknown'}, {'first_name': 'Margaret', 'last_name': 'Thatcher', 'gender': 'Female'}, {'first_name': 'George', 'last_name': 'Bush', 'gender': 'Male'}, {'first_name': 'Condoleezza', 'last_name': 'Rice', 'gender': 'Female'}, ] With this input for ``people``, the example ``{% regroup %}`` template code above would result in the following output: * Male: * Bill Clinton * Unknown: * Pat Smith * Female: * Margaret Thatcher * Male: * George Bush * Female: * Condoleezza Rice The easiest solution to this gotcha is to make sure in your view code that the data is ordered according to how you want to display it. Another solution is to sort the data in the template using the ``dictsort`` filter, if your data is in a list of dictionaries:: {% regroup people|dictsort:"gender" by gender as gender_list %} spaceless ~~~~~~~~~ Removes whitespace between HTML tags. This includes tab characters and newlines. Example usage:: {% spaceless %}

Foo

{% endspaceless %} This example would return this HTML::

Foo

Only space between *tags* is removed -- not space between tags and text. In this example, the space around ``Hello`` won't be stripped:: {% spaceless %} Hello {% endspaceless %} ssi ~~~ Output the contents of a given file into the page. Like a simple "include" tag, ``{% ssi %}`` includes the contents of another file -- which must be specified using an absolute path -- in the current page:: {% ssi /home/html/ljworld.com/includes/right_generic.html %} If the optional "parsed" parameter is given, the contents of the included file are evaluated as template code, within the current context:: {% ssi /home/html/ljworld.com/includes/right_generic.html parsed %} Note that if you use ``{% ssi %}``, you'll need to define `ALLOWED_INCLUDE_ROOTS`_ in your Django settings, as a security measure. See also: ``{% include %}``. .. _ALLOWED_INCLUDE_ROOTS: ../settings/#allowed-include-roots templatetag ~~~~~~~~~~~ Output one of the syntax characters used to compose template tags. Since the template system has no concept of "escaping", to display one of the bits used in template tags, you must use the ``{% templatetag %}`` tag. The argument tells which template bit to output: ================== ======= Argument Outputs ================== ======= ``openblock`` ``{%`` ``closeblock`` ``%}`` ``openvariable`` ``{{`` ``closevariable`` ``}}`` ``openbrace`` ``{`` ``closebrace`` ``}`` ``opencomment`` ``{#`` ``closecomment`` ``#}`` ================== ======= url ~~~ **Note that the syntax for this tag may change in the future, as we make it more robust.** Returns an absolute URL (i.e., a URL without the domain name) matching a given view function and optional parameters. This is a way to output links without violating the DRY principle by having to hard-code URLs in your templates:: {% url path.to.some_view arg1,arg2,name1=value1 %} The first argument is a path to a view function in the format ``package.package.module.function``. Additional arguments are optional and should be comma-separated values that will be used as positional and keyword arguments in the URL. All arguments required by the URLconf should be present. For example, suppose you have a view, ``app_views.client``, whose URLconf takes a client ID (here, ``client()`` is a method inside the views file ``app_views.py``). The URLconf line might look like this:: ('^client/(\d+)/$', 'app_views.client') If this app's URLconf is included into the project's URLconf under a path such as this:: ('^clients/', include('project_name.app_name.urls')) ...then, in a template, you can create a link to this view like this:: {% url app_views.client client.id %} The template tag will output the string ``/clients/client/123/``. **New in development version:** If you're using `named URL patterns`_, you can refer to the name of the pattern in the ``url`` tag instead of using the path to the view. .. _named URL patterns: ../url_dispatch/#naming-url-patterns widthratio ~~~~~~~~~~ For creating bar charts and such, this tag calculates the ratio of a given value to a maximum value, and then applies that ratio to a constant. For example:: Above, if ``this_value`` is 175 and ``max_value`` is 200, the the image in the above example will be 88 pixels wide (because 175/200 = .875; .875 * 100 = 87.5 which is rounded up to 88). with ~~~~ **New in Django development version** Caches a complex variable under a simpler name. This is useful when accessing an "expensive" method (e.g., one that hits the database) multiple times. For example:: {% with business.employees.count as total %} {{ total }} employee{{ total|pluralize }} {% endwith %} The populated variable (in the example above, ``total``) is only available between the ``{% with %}`` and ``{% endwith %}`` tags. Built-in filter reference ------------------------- add ~~~ Adds the argument to the value. For example:: {{ value|add:"2" }} If ``value`` is ``4``, then the output will be ``6``. addslashes ~~~~~~~~~~ Adds slashes before quotes. Useful for escaping strings in CSV, for example. **New in Django development version**: For escaping data in JavaScript strings, use the `escapejs`_ filter instead. capfirst ~~~~~~~~ Capitalizes the first character of the value. center ~~~~~~ Centers the value in a field of a given width. cut ~~~ Removes all values of arg from the given string. For example:: {{ value|cut:" "}} If ``value`` is ``"String with spaces"``, the output will be ``"Stringwithspaces"``. date ~~~~ Formats a date according to the given format (same as the `now`_ tag). For example:: {{ value|date:"D d M Y" }} If ``value`` is a ``datetime`` object (e.g., the result of ``datetime.datetime.now()``), the output will be the string ``'Wed 09 Jan 2008'``. default ~~~~~~~ If value evaluates to ``False``, use given default. Otherwise, use the value. For example:: {{ value|default:"nothing" }} If ``value`` is ``""`` (the empty string), the output will be ``nothing``. default_if_none ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If (and only if) value is ``None``, use given default. Otherwise, use the value. Note that if an empty string is given, the default value will *not* be used. Use the ``default`` filter if you want to fallback for empty strings. For example:: {{ value|default_if_none:"nothing" }} If ``value`` is ``None``, the output will be the string ``"nothing"``. dictsort ~~~~~~~~ Takes a list of dictionaries and returns that list sorted by the key given in the argument. For example:: {{ value|dictsort:"name" }} If ``value`` is:: [ {'name': 'zed', 'age': 19}, {'name': 'amy', 'age': 22}, {'name': 'joe', 'age': 31}, ] then the output would be:: [ {'name': 'amy', 'age': 22}, {'name': 'joe', 'age': 31}, {'name': 'zed', 'age': 19}, ] dictsortreversed ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Takes a list of dictionaries and returns that list sorted in reverse order by the key given in the argument. This works exactly the same as the above filter, but the returned value will be in reverse order. divisibleby ~~~~~~~~~~~ Returns ``True`` if the value is divisible by the argument. For example:: {{ value|divisibleby:"3" }} If ``value`` is ``21``, the output would be ``True``. escape ~~~~~~ Escapes a string's HTML. Specifically, it makes these replacements: * ``<`` is converted to ``<`` * ``>`` is converted to ``>`` * ``'`` (single quote) is converted to ``'`` * ``"`` (double quote) is converted to ``"`` * ``&`` is converted to ``&`` The escaping is only applied when the string is output, so it does not matter where in a chained sequence of filters you put ``escape``: it will always be applied as though it were the last filter. If you want escaping to be applied immediately, use the ``force_escape`` filter. Applying ``escape`` to a variable that would normally have auto-escaping applied to the result will only result in one round of escaping being done. So it is safe to use this function even in auto-escaping environments. If you want multiple escaping passes to be applied, use the ``force_escape`` filter. **New in Django development version:** Due to auto-escaping, the behavior of this filter has changed slightly. The replacements are only made once, after all other filters are applied -- including filters before and after it. escapejs ~~~~~~~~ **New in Django development version** Escapes characters for use in JavaScript strings. This does *not* make the string safe for use in HTML, but does protect you from syntax errors when using templates to generate JavaScript/JSON. filesizeformat ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Format the value like a 'human-readable' file size (i.e. ``'13 KB'``, ``'4.1 MB'``, ``'102 bytes'``, etc). For example:: {{ value|filesizeformat }} If ``value`` is 123456789, the output would be ``117.7 MB``. first ~~~~~ Returns the first item in a list. For example:: {{ value|first }} If ``value`` is the list ``['a', 'b', 'c']``, the output will be ``'a'``. fix_ampersands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Replaces ampersands with ``&`` entities. For example:: {{ value|fix_ampersands }} If ``value`` is ``Tom & Jerry``, the output will be ``Tom & Jerry``. **New in Django development version**: This filter generally is no longer useful, because ampersands are automatically escaped in templates. See escape_ for more on how auto-escaping works. floatformat ~~~~~~~~~~~ When used without an argument, rounds a floating-point number to one decimal place -- but only if there's a decimal part to be displayed. For example: ============ =========================== ======== ``value`` Template Output ============ =========================== ======== ``34.23234`` ``{{ value|floatformat }}`` ``34.2`` ``34.00000`` ``{{ value|floatformat }}`` ``34`` ``34.26000`` ``{{ value|floatformat }}`` ``34.3`` ============ =========================== ======== If used with a numeric integer argument, ``floatformat`` rounds a number to that many decimal places. For example: ============ ============================= ========== ``value`` Template Output ============ ============================= ========== ``34.23234`` ``{{ value|floatformat:3 }}`` ``34.232`` ``34.00000`` ``{{ value|floatformat:3 }}`` ``34.000`` ``34.26000`` ``{{ value|floatformat:3 }}`` ``34.260`` ============ ============================= ========== If the argument passed to ``floatformat`` is negative, it will round a number to that many decimal places -- but only if there's a decimal part to be displayed. For example: ============ ================================ ========== ``value`` Template Output ============ ================================ ========== ``34.23234`` ``{{ value|floatformat:"-3" }}`` ``34.232`` ``34.00000`` ``{{ value|floatformat:"-3" }}`` ``34`` ``34.26000`` ``{{ value|floatformat:"-3" }}`` ``34.260`` ============ ================================ ========== Using ``floatformat`` with no argument is equivalent to using ``floatformat`` with an argument of ``-1``. force_escape ~~~~~~~~~~~~ **New in Django development version** Applies HTML escaping to a string (see the ``escape`` filter for details). This filter is applied *immediately* and returns a new, escaped string. This is useful in the rare cases where you need multiple escaping or want to apply other filters to the escaped results. Normally, you want to use the ``escape`` filter. get_digit ~~~~~~~~~ Given a whole number, returns the requested digit, where 1 is the right-most digit, 2 is the second-right-most digit, etc. Returns the original value for invalid input (if input or argument is not an integer, or if argument is less than 1). Otherwise, output is always an integer. For example:: {{ value|get_digit:"2" }} If ``value`` is ``123456789``, the output will be ``8``. iriencode ~~~~~~~~~ Converts an IRI (Internationalized Resource Identifier) to a string that is suitable for including in a URL. This is necessary if you're trying to use strings containing non-ASCII characters in a URL. It's safe to use this filter on a string that has already gone through the ``urlencode`` filter. join ~~~~ Joins a list with a string, like Python's ``str.join(list)`` For example:: {{ value|join:" // " }} If ``value`` is the list ``['a', 'b', 'c']``, the output will be the string ``"a // b // c"``. last ~~~~ **New in Django development version.** Returns the last item in a list. For example:: {{ value|last }} If ``value`` is the list ``['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']``, the output will be the string ``"d"``. length ~~~~~~ Returns the length of the value. This works for both strings and lists. For example:: {{ value|length }} If ``value`` is ``['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']``, the output will be ``4``. length_is ~~~~~~~~~ Returns ``True`` if the value's length is the argument, or ``False`` otherwise. For example:: {{ value|length_is:"4" }} If ``value`` is ``['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']``, the output will be ``True``. linebreaks ~~~~~~~~~~ Replaces line breaks in plain text with appropriate HTML; a single newline becomes an HTML line break (``
``) and a new line followed by a blank line becomes a paragraph break (``

``). For example:: {{ value|linebreaks }} If ``value`` is ``Joel\nis a slug``, the output will be ``

Joel
is a slug

``. linebreaksbr ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Converts all newlines in a piece of plain text to HTML line breaks (``
``). linenumbers ~~~~~~~~~~~ Displays text with line numbers. ljust ~~~~~ Left-aligns the value in a field of a given width. **Argument:** field size lower ~~~~~ Converts a string into all lowercase. For example:: {{ value|lower }} If ``value`` is ``Still MAD At Yoko``, the output will be ``still mad at yoko``. make_list ~~~~~~~~~ Returns the value turned into a list. For an integer, it's a list of digits. For a string, it's a list of characters. For example:: {{ value|make_list }} If ``value`` is the string ``"Joel"``, the output would be the list ``[u'J', u'o', u'e', u'l']``. If ``value`` is ``123``, the output will be the list ``[1, 2, 3]``. phone2numeric ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Converts a phone number (possibly containing letters) to its numerical equivalent. For example, ``'800-COLLECT'`` will be converted to ``'800-2655328'``. The input doesn't have to be a valid phone number. This will happily convert any string. pluralize ~~~~~~~~~ Returns a plural suffix if the value is not 1. By default, this suffix is ``'s'``. Example:: You have {{ num_messages }} message{{ num_messages|pluralize }}. For words that require a suffix other than ``'s'``, you can provide an alternate suffix as a parameter to the filter. Example:: You have {{ num_walruses }} walrus{{ num_walrus|pluralize:"es" }}. For words that don't pluralize by simple suffix, you can specify both a singular and plural suffix, separated by a comma. Example:: You have {{ num_cherries }} cherr{{ num_cherries|pluralize:"y,ies" }}. pprint ~~~~~~ A wrapper around `pprint.pprint`__ -- for debugging, really. __ http://www.python.org/doc/2.5/lib/module-pprint.html random ~~~~~~ Returns a random item from the given list. For example:: {{ value|random }} If ``value`` is the list ``['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']``, the output could be ``"b"``. removetags ~~~~~~~~~~ Removes a space-separated list of [X]HTML tags from the output. For example:: {{ value|removetags:"b span"|safe }} If ``value`` is ``"Joel a slug"`` the output will be ``"Joel a slug"``. rjust ~~~~~ Right-aligns the value in a field of a given width. **Argument:** field size safe ~~~~ Marks a string as not requiring further HTML escaping prior to output. When autoescaping is off, this filter has no effect. slice ~~~~~ Returns a slice of the list. Uses the same syntax as Python's list slicing. See http://diveintopython.org/native_data_types/lists.html#odbchelper.list.slice for an introduction. Example: ``{{ some_list|slice:":2" }}`` slugify ~~~~~~~ Converts to lowercase, removes non-word characters (alphanumerics and underscores) and converts spaces to hyphens. Also strips leading and trailing whitespace. For example:: {{ value|slugify }} If ``value`` is ``"Joel is a slug"``, the output will be ``"joel-is-a-slug"``. stringformat ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Formats the variable according to the argument, a string formatting specifier. This specifier uses Python string formating syntax, with the exception that the leading "%" is dropped. See http://docs.python.org/lib/typesseq-strings.html for documentation of Python string formatting For example:: {{ value|stringformat:"s" }} If ``value`` is ``"Joel is a slug"``, the output will be ``"Joel is a slug"``. striptags ~~~~~~~~~ Strips all [X]HTML tags. For example:: {{ value|striptags }} If ``value`` is ``"Joel a slug"``, the output will be ``"Joel is a slug"``. time ~~~~ Formats a time according to the given format (same as the `now`_ tag). The time filter will only accept parameters in the format string that relate to the time of day, not the date (for obvious reasons). If you need to format a date, use the `date`_ filter. For example:: {{ value|time:"H:i" }} If ``value`` is equivalent to ``datetime.datetime.now()``, the output will be the string ``"01:23"``. timesince ~~~~~~~~~ Formats a date as the time since that date (e.g., "4 days, 6 hours"). Takes an optional argument that is a variable containing the date to use as the comparison point (without the argument, the comparison point is *now*). For example, if ``blog_date`` is a date instance representing midnight on 1 June 2006, and ``comment_date`` is a date instance for 08:00 on 1 June 2006, then ``{{ comment_date|timesince:blog_date }}`` would return "8 hours". Minutes is the smallest unit used, and "0 minutes" will be returned for any date that is in the future relative to the comparison point. timeuntil ~~~~~~~~~ Similar to ``timesince``, except that it measures the time from now until the given date or datetime. For example, if today is 1 June 2006 and ``conference_date`` is a date instance holding 29 June 2006, then ``{{ conference_date|timeuntil }}`` will return "4 weeks". Takes an optional argument that is a variable containing the date to use as the comparison point (instead of *now*). If ``from_date`` contains 22 June 2006, then ``{{ conference_date|timeuntil:from_date }}`` will return "1 week". Minutes is the smallest unit used, and "0 minutes" will be returned for any date that is in the past relative to the comparison point. title ~~~~~ Converts a string into titlecase. truncatewords ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Truncates a string after a certain number of words. **Argument:** Number of words to truncate after For example:: {{ value|truncatewords:2 }} If ``value`` is ``"Joel is a slug"``, the output will be ``"Joel is ..."``. truncatewords_html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Similar to ``truncatewords``, except that it is aware of HTML tags. Any tags that are opened in the string and not closed before the truncation point, are closed immediately after the truncation. This is less efficient than ``truncatewords``, so should only be used when it is being passed HTML text. unordered_list ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Recursively takes a self-nested list and returns an HTML unordered list -- WITHOUT opening and closing
    tags. **New in Django development version:** The format accepted by ``unordered_list`` has changed to be easier to understand. The list is assumed to be in the proper format. For example, if ``var`` contains ``['States', ['Kansas', ['Lawrence', 'Topeka'], 'Illinois']]``, then ``{{ var|unordered_list }}`` would return::
  • States
    • Kansas
      • Lawrence
      • Topeka
    • Illinois
  • Note: the previous more restrictive and verbose format is still supported: ``['States', [['Kansas', [['Lawrence', []], ['Topeka', []]]], ['Illinois', []]]]``, upper ~~~~~ Converts a string into all uppercase. For example:: {{ value|upper }} If ``value`` is ``"Joel is a slug"``, the output will be ``"JOEL IS A SLUG"``. urlencode ~~~~~~~~~ Escapes a value for use in a URL. urlize ~~~~~~ Converts URLs in plain text into clickable links. Note that if ``urlize`` is applied to text that already contains HTML markup, things won't work as expected. Apply this filter only to *plain* text. For example:: {{ value|urlize }} If ``value`` is ``"Check out www.djangoproject.com"``, the output will be ``"Check out www.djangoproject.com"``. urlizetrunc ~~~~~~~~~~~ Converts URLs into clickable links, truncating URLs longer than the given character limit. As with urlize_, this filter should only be applied to *plain* text. **Argument:** Length to truncate URLs to For example:: {{ value|urlizetrunc:15 }} If ``value`` is ``"Check out www.djangoproject.com"``, the output would be ``'Check out www.djangopr...'``. wordcount ~~~~~~~~~ Returns the number of words. wordwrap ~~~~~~~~ Wraps words at specified line length. **Argument:** number of characters at which to wrap the text For example:: {{ value|wordwrap:5 }} If ``value`` is ``Joel is a slug``, the output would be:: Joel is a slug yesno ~~~~~ Given a string mapping values for true, false and (optionally) None, returns one of those strings according to the value: ========== ====================== ================================== Value Argument Outputs ========== ====================== ================================== ``True`` ``"yeah,no,maybe"`` ``yeah`` ``False`` ``"yeah,no,maybe"`` ``no`` ``None`` ``"yeah,no,maybe"`` ``maybe`` ``None`` ``"yeah,no"`` ``"no"`` (converts None to False if no mapping for None is given) ========== ====================== ================================== Other tags and filter libraries =============================== Django comes with a couple of other template-tag libraries that you have to enable explicitly in your ``INSTALLED_APPS`` setting and enable in your template with the ``{% load %}`` tag. django.contrib.humanize ----------------------- A set of Django template filters useful for adding a "human touch" to data. See the `humanize documentation`_. .. _humanize documentation: ../add_ons/#humanize django.contrib.markup --------------------- A collection of template filters that implement these common markup languages: * Textile * Markdown * ReST (ReStructured Text) See the `markup section`_ of the `add-ons documentation`_ for more information. .. _markup section: ../add_ons/#markup .. _add-ons documentation: ../add_ons/ django.contrib.webdesign ------------------------ A collection of template tags that can be useful while designing a Web site, such as a generator of Lorem Ipsum text. See the `webdesign documentation`_. .. _webdesign documentation: ../webdesign/