Question

Is there a way to do something like the following in Django templates?

   {% for hop in hops%}
    <tr>  
      <td>{{ hop.name }}</td>
      <td>{{ hop.mass }}</td>  
      <td>{{ hop."boil time" }}</td>
    </tr>
  {% endfor %}

The hop.”boil time” doesn’t work. The simple solution is rename the key boil_time, but I’m interested in alternatives.

Answer 1

The best way to get at it is to sneak the property name into another variable, like so:

{% for key, value in hop.items %}
    {% ifequal key 'boil time' %}
        {{ value }}
    {% endifequal %}
{% endfor %}

In Django 0.96 (the version used by Google AppEngine) the templating language doesn’t support tuple expansion, so it’s a bit uglier:

{% for hop in hops %}
    <tr>
        <td>{{ hop.name }}</td>
        <td>{{ hop.mass }}</td>
        <td>
            {% for item in hop.items %}
                {% ifequal item.0 'boil time' %}
                    {{ item.1 }}
                {% endifequal %}
            {% endfor %}
        </td>
    </tr>
{% endfor %}

So, taking your code, we end up with:

{% for hop in hops %}
    <tr>
        <td>{{ hop.name }}</td>
        <td>{{ hop.mass }}</td>
        <td>
            {% for key, value in hop.items %}
                {% ifequal key 'boil time' %}
                    {{ value }}
                {% endifequal %}
            {% endfor %}
        </td>
    </tr>
{% endfor %}

In Django 0.96 (the version on Google AppEnginge), this becomes:

{% for hop in hops %}
    <tr>
        <td>{{ hop.name }}</td>
        <td>{{ hop.mass }}</td>
        <td>
            {% for item in hop.items %}
                {% ifequal item.0 'boil time' %}
                    {{ item.1 }}
                {% endifequal %}
            {% endfor %}
        </td>
    </tr>
{% endfor %}

There’s even a wordier way to get at it, using the regroup tag:

{% regroup hop.items by 'boil time' as bt %}
    {% for item in bt %}
        {% if forloop.first %}
            {% for item2 in item.list %}
                {% for item3 in item2 %}
                    {% if not forloop.first %}
                        {{ item3 }}
                    {% endif %}
                {% endfor %}
            {% endfor %}
        {% endif %}
{% endfor %}