How to pass an argument to a method on a template variable in Django?

Question

I am using the lxml library to define a variable (category) in a view. lxml provides a method .get to retrieve custom attributes. I'd like to use it in the template like so:

{{ category.get("foo") }}

I know that when using template variables it is unnecessary to use parenthesis, but I get the following error:

{{ category.get "foo" }}

Could not parse the remainder: ' "foo"' from 'category.get "foo"'

I'm assuming that there is something wrong with my syntax but google has been no help. The django docs say that methods are looked up by using a .

The syntax used in Django template filters is ":" for arguments, so I think if someone were to implement this, it would be {{ category.get:foo }}. But, it doesn't exist. Maybe you should add it? — slacy, Oct 23 '09 at 04:20
Possible duplicate of [How to call function that takes an argument in a Django template?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2468804/how-to-call-function-that-takes-an-argument-in-a-django-template) — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, May 11 '16 at 22:18

score 32 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 14 '09 at 00:38

32

You can't pass an argument to a callable attribute like this. Either pull the value in the view, or write a custom template tag to do it.

answered Sep 14 '09 at 00:38

Ned Batchelder

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Is there any way to have access to other variables, like the current request (i.e. request.user) or the current context object? – slacy Oct 23 '09 at 03:25
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you can in a custom templatetag – Collin Anderson Jul 19 '13 at 21:45

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 13 '09 at 23:26

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I agree with the philosophy of separating logic from design, but there's an exception. I am currently writing a get_image(height=xxx, width=xxx) method for a model. Clearly, it should be up to the template designer to decide the size of the image as the last stage. Though I suppose the correct thing to do is write a custom tag, but why restrict?

answered Dec 13 '09 at 23:26

Joe

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Totally true. It's not an "answer", more like a comment, but +1 – Mohammad Jafar Mashhadi Dec 07 '15 at 09:52

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 19 '09 at 16:37

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Here I wrote a hack to call a function and pass the arguments http://www.sprklab.com/notes/13-passing-arguments-to-functions-in-django-template/

answered Nov 19 '09 at 16:37

Pavel

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This looks somehow like mixing code and content, almost the same way PHP does that. What do you think? – dotz Apr 25 '13 at 08:31

How to pass an argument to a method on a template variable in Django?

3 Answers3

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