Question

I have a dictionary with a number of characteristics:

sort_options = SortedDict([
    ("importance" , ("Importance" , "warning-sign" , "importance")),
    ("effort" , ("Effort" , "wrench" , "effort")),
    ("time_estimate" , ("Time Estimate" , "time" , "time_estimate")),
])  

I also have a list of actions as a query result. Each action has these attributes; In my template, I can call {{ action.effort }} or {{ action.time_estimate }} and get a result.

I’m iterating through my sort_options to populate twitter bootstrap icons:

{% for key, icon in sort_options.items %}
    <i class="icon-{{ icon.1 }}"></i>
{% endfor %}

But I also want to display the action value for each of these attributed. Essentially, something like:

{% for key, icon in sort_options.items %}
    <i class="icon-{{ icon.1 }}"></i>
    {{ action.key }}
{% endfor %}

Where key would resolve to “importance” or “effort”. I know this doesn’t work. So I was trying to leverage the solution presented in this question.

The solution proposed a template filter:

def hash(h,key):
    if key in h:
        return h[key]
    else:
        return None
register.filter(hash)

{{ user|hash:item }}

Where the question used a dictionary that looked like so:

{'item1': 3, 'name': 'username', 'item2': 4}

I tried the following:

{% for key, icon in sort_options.items %}
    <i class="icon-{{ icon.1 }}"></i>
    {{ action|hash:key }}
{% endfor %}

But got an error:

Caught TypeError while rendering: argument of type 'Action' is not iterable

I believe this is because the template filter is getting just one attribute of the object (likely the name) as opposed to the whole dictionary:

[<Action: Action_one>, <Action: Task_two>...]

Is there a way to force the template to pass the full object to the template tag?

Answer 1

I think I finally get it. You want the equivalent of

getattr(action, key)

in your template. This answer describes the getattribute templatetag you’d need to do so.