flask/docs/templating.rst

Templates
=========

Flask leverages Jinja2 as template engine.  You are obviously free to use
a different template engine, but you still have to install Jinja2 to run
Flask itself.  This requirement is necessary to enable rich extensions.
An extension can depend on Jinja2 being present.

This section only gives a very quick introduction into how Jinja2
is integrated into Flask.  If you want information on the template
engine's syntax itself, head over to the official `Jinja2 Template
Documentation <http://jinja.pocoo.org/2/documentation/templates>`_ for
more information.

Jinja Setup
-----------

Unless customized, Jinja2 is configured by Flask as follows:

-   autoescaping is enabled for all templates ending in ``.html``,
    ``.htm``, ``.xml`` as well as ``.xhtml``
-   a template has the ability to opt in/out autoescaping with the
    ``{% autoescape %}`` tag.
-   Flask inserts a couple of global functions and helpers into the
    Jinja2 context, additionally to the values that are present by
    default.

Standard Context
----------------

The following global variables are available within Jinja2 templates
by default:

.. data:: config
   :noindex:

   The current configuration object (:data:`flask.config`)

   .. versionadded:: 0.6

.. data:: request
   :noindex:

   The current request object (:class:`flask.request`)

.. data:: session
   :noindex:

   The current session object (:class:`flask.session`)

.. data:: g
   :noindex:

   The request-bound object for global variables (:data:`flask.g`)

.. function:: url_for
   :noindex:

   The :func:`flask.url_for` function.

.. function:: get_flashed_messages
   :noindex:

   The :func:`flask.get_flashed_messages` function.

.. admonition:: The Jinja Context Behaviour

   These variables are added to the context of variables, they are not
   global variables.  The difference is that by default these will not
   show up in the context of imported templates.  This is partially caused
   by performance considerations, partially to keep things explicit.

   What does this mean for you?  If you have a macro you want to import,
   that needs to access the request object you have two possibilities:

   1.   you explicitly pass the request to the macro as parameter, or
        the attribute of the request object you are interested in.
   2.   you import the macro "with context".

   Importing with context looks like this:

   .. sourcecode:: jinja

      {% from '_helpers.html' import my_macro with context %}

Standard Filters
----------------

These filters are available in Jinja2 additionally to the filters provided
by Jinja2 itself:

.. function:: tojson
   :noindex:

   This function converts the given object into JSON representation.  This
   is for example very helpful if you try to generate JavaScript on the
   fly.

   Note that inside `script` tags no escaping must take place, so make
   sure to disable escaping with ``|safe`` if you intend to use it inside
   `script` tags:

   .. sourcecode:: html+jinja

       <script type=text/javascript>
           doSomethingWith({{ user.username|tojson|safe }});
       </script>

   That the ``|tojson`` filter escapes forward slashes properly for you.

Controlling Autoescaping
------------------------

Autoescaping is the concept of automatically escaping special characters
of you.  Special characters in the sense of HTML (or XML, and thus XHTML)
are ``&``, ``>``, ``<``, ``"`` as well as ``'``.  Because these characters
carry specific meanings in documents on their own you have to replace them
by so called "entities" if you want to use them for text.  Not doing so
would not only cause user frustration by the inability to use these
characters in text, but can also lead to security problems.  (see
:ref:`xss`)

Sometimes however you will need to disable autoescaping in templates.
This can be the case if you want to explicitly inject HTML into pages, for
example if they come from a system that generate secure HTML like a
markdown to HTML converter.

There are three ways to accomplish that:

-   In the Python code, wrap the HTML string in a :class:`~flask.Markup`
    object before passing it to the template.  This is in general the
    recommended way.
-   Inside the template, use the ``|safe`` filter to explicitly mark a
    string as safe HTML (``{{ myvariable|safe }}``)
-   Temporarily disable the autoescape system altogether.

To disable the autoescape system in templates, you can use the ``{%
autoescape %}`` block:

.. sourcecode:: html+jinja

    {% autoescape false %}
        <p>autoescaping is disabled here
        <p>{{ will_not_be_escaped }}
    {% endautoescape %}

Whenever you do this, please be very cautious about the varibles you are
using in this block.

Registering Filters
-------------------

If you want to register your own filters in Jinja2 you have two ways to do
that.  You can either put them by hand into the
:attr:`~flask.Flask.jinja_env` of the application or use the
:meth:`~flask.Flask.template_filter` decorator.

The two following examples work the same and both reverse an object::

    @app.template_filter('reverse')
    def reverse_filter(s):
        return s[::-1]

    def reverse_filter(s):
        return s[::-1]
    app.jinja_env.filters['reverse'] = reverse_filter

In case of the decorator the argument is optional if you want to use the
function name as name of the filter.

Context Processors
------------------

To inject new variables automatically into the context of a template
context processors exist in Flask.  Context processors run before the
template is rendered and have the ability to inject new values into the
template context.  A context processor is a function that returns a
dictionary.  The keys and values of this dictionary are then merged with
the template context::

    @app.context_processor
    def inject_user():
        return dict(user=g.user)

The context processor above makes a variable called `user` available in
the template with the value of `g.user`.  This example is not very
interesting because `g` is available in templates anyways, but it gives an
idea how this works.