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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-16T07:01:45+00:00

Given a Django template variable with a many-to-many model, is it possible to pass

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Given a Django template variable with a many-to-many model, is it possible to pass that to a Javascript function, and access it?

(What I’m trying to get, is a list of the groups, including pk, that the current user belongs to).

For example, if I have a user jsmith that belongs to two groups, alpha and beta:

<html>
<script type="text/javascript">
    mangle_data("{{ user.name }}", "{{ user.groups }}", "{{ user.groups.all }"");
</script>
</html>

function mangle_data(username, groups, all) {
    alert("username = " + username); // works. output = "jsmith"
    alert("user.groups = " + groups); // output = "django.db.models.fields.related.ManyRelatedManager object"
    alert("all = " + all); // output = "[Group alpha; Group beta;]"
}

In all cases, the parameter passed to Javascript, is a single flattened string. Ideally, I’d get an object, or even a list that contained both group names, and group pk.

Granted, I could find the pk of a group, given its name – but that’s a lot more steps. If I can get the data from the Django template directly into Javascript, it would be much cleaner.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    How I wound up solving this, was to use a Context Processor to format the data, and pass it to a template variable:

    context_processors.py

def site_settings(request):
    if request.user.is_authenticated():
        user_groups = "+".join(['{"id":%s, "name":"%s"}' % 
            (grp['id'], grp['name']) for grp in rquest.user.groups.values()])
    else:
        user_groups = ''
    return {'USER_GROUPS': user_groups, }

template.html

<html>
<script type="text/javascript">
    mangle_data("{{ USER_GROUPS|safe }"");
</script>
</html>

handle_data.js

function mangle_data(groups) {
    var groups_json = '[' + groups.split('+').join(',') + ']';
    var groups_OBJ = JSON.parse(groups_json); // this is now a Javascript object.
}
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