Upgrading from Django 1.7: render_to_response and context_instance

[Hanne Moa]

I'm upgrading a rather large code base from django 1.7, with the
ultimate goal to have it run on 1.11, as the code isn't fully verified
to run on python 3 yet.

I'm replacing `render_to_response()` with `render()` everywhere a
RequestContext is used, and came upon this (simplified) oddity:

return render_to_response(
template,
{'important': 1},
context_instance=RequestContext(
request, processors=[important_processor])
)

What important_processor() does is return a dictionary {''important":
FOO} where the value of FOO depends on something in the request.

Many other views' render_to_response() had this as its
context_instance, but they did not define 'important" in the
dictionary before the context_instance, so I replaced them with:

return render(
request,
template,
important_processor(request) + {'whatever': 'was', 'in': 'here'}
)

In the first example I'm having some trouble figuring out which value
for "important" is visible to the template: is it 1, or whatever
important_processor() generates?

If I print what I think is context that is used to render the
template, I get a list of multiple dictionaries. The last two both
have a "important"-key, but with different values. {'important': 1}
comes first of the two.

I am neck deep in the template rendering code right now and I'm quite lost.


HM


(For statistics' sake , some 95% of the render_to_response()s looked like this:

return render_to_response(
some_template,
some_dict,
context_instance=RequestContext(request)
)

)

[Matthew Pava]

If you are simply adding something to most every request, I would add a context processor in the TEMPLATE settings.

Check out https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.1/topics/templates/#context-processors

In this example, I have an app called general. Within that is a py file called context_processors. In that file is a function called extra_context that takes request as an argument. I just return a dictionary that all of my templates have access to.

TEMPLATES = [
{
'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
'DIRS': [
# insert your TEMPLATE_DIRS here
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates'),
],
'APP_DIRS': True,
'OPTIONS': {
'debug': True,
'context_processors': [
# Insert your TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS here or use this
# list if you haven't customized them:
'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
'django.template.context_processors.debug',
'django.template.context_processors.i18n',
'django.template.context_processors.media',
'django.template.context_processors.static',
'django.template.context_processors.tz',
'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
'django.template.context_processors.request',
'general.context_processors.extra_context',
],
},
},
]



-----Original Message-----
From: django-***@googlegroups.com [mailto:django-***@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Hanne Moa
Sent: Wednesday, August 8, 2018 7:56 AM
To: django-***@googlegroups.com
Subject: Upgrading from Django 1.7: render_to_response and context_instance

I'm upgrading a rather large code base from django 1.7, with the ultimate goal to have it run on 1.11, as the code isn't fully verified to run on python 3 yet.

I'm replacing `render_to_response()` with `render()` everywhere a RequestContext is used, and came upon this (simplified) oddity:

return render_to_response(
template,
{'important': 1},
context_instance=RequestContext(
request, processors=[important_processor])
)

What important_processor() does is return a dictionary {''important":
FOO} where the value of FOO depends on something in the request.

Many other views' render_to_response() had this as its context_instance, but they did not define 'important" in the dictionary before the context_instance, so I replaced them with:

return render(
request,
template,
important_processor(request) + {'whatever': 'was', 'in': 'here'}
)

In the first example I'm having some trouble figuring out which value for "important" is visible to the template: is it 1, or whatever
important_processor() generates?

If I print what I think is context that is used to render the template, I get a list of multiple dictionaries. The last two both have a "important"-key, but with different values. {'important': 1} comes first of the two.

I am neck deep in the template rendering code right now and I'm quite lost.


HM


(For statistics' sake , some 95% of the render_to_response()s looked like this:

return render_to_response(
some_template,
some_dict,
context_instance=RequestContext(request)
)

)

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[Hanne Moa]

This is only used in one app, and one views.py out of 38. There's only
this one views.py remaining that uses render_to_response with
context_instance. If this was modern Django code written by me I would
have used class-based views and a mixin modifying get_context_data
(Thank $deity for CBVs).

There is one other view that used something similar, through a
subclass of RequestContext instead of a local context processor. It
added two keys to every context in every view for that app/views.py.
There was never any overlap with what was put in the explicit context
so the fix was almost seddable.

This is a very lava flow heavy project so asking the original
developer about what the point was is out, and the point isn't
commented/documented either. (But who remembers 5 year old code at
that level of detail anyway?)

Post by Matthew Pava
If you are simply adding something to most every request, I would add a context processor in the TEMPLATE settings.
Check out https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.1/topics/templates/#context-processors
In this example, I have an app called general. Within that is a py file called context_processors. In that file is a function called extra_context that takes request as an argument. I just return a dictionary that all of my templates have access to.
TEMPLATES = [
{
'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
'DIRS': [
# insert your TEMPLATE_DIRS here
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates'),
],
'APP_DIRS': True,
'OPTIONS': {
'debug': True,
'context_processors': [
# Insert your TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS here or use this
'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
'django.template.context_processors.debug',
'django.template.context_processors.i18n',
'django.template.context_processors.media',
'django.template.context_processors.static',
'django.template.context_processors.tz',
'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
'django.template.context_processors.request',
'general.context_processors.extra_context',
],
},
},
]
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, August 8, 2018 7:56 AM
Subject: Upgrading from Django 1.7: render_to_response and context_instance
I'm upgrading a rather large code base from django 1.7, with the ultimate goal to have it run on 1.11, as the code isn't fully verified to run on python 3 yet.
return render_to_response(
template,
{'important': 1},
context_instance=RequestContext(
request, processors=[important_processor])
)
FOO} where the value of FOO depends on something in the request.
return render(
request,
template,
important_processor(request) + {'whatever': 'was', 'in': 'here'}
)
In the first example I'm having some trouble figuring out which value for "important" is visible to the template: is it 1, or whatever
important_processor() generates?
If I print what I think is context that is used to render the template, I get a list of multiple dictionaries. The last two both have a "important"-key, but with different values. {'important': 1} comes first of the two.
I am neck deep in the template rendering code right now and I'm quite lost.
HM
return render_to_response(
some_template,
some_dict,
context_instance=RequestContext(request)
)
)
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For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
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