flask/docs/templating.rst

Templates
=========

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

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

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

Unless customized, Jinja is configured by Flask as follows:

-   autoescaping is enabled for all templates ending in ``.html``,
    ``.htm``, ``.xml``, ``.xhtml``, as well as ``.svg`` when using
    :func:`~flask.templating.render_template`.
-   autoescaping is enabled for all strings when using
    :func:`~flask.templating.render_template_string`.
-   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
    Jinja context, additionally to the values that are present by
    default.

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

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

.. data:: config
   :noindex:

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

   .. versionadded:: 0.6

   .. versionchanged:: 0.10
      This is now always available, even in imported templates.

.. data:: request
   :noindex:

   The current request object (:class:`flask.request`).  This variable is
   unavailable if the template was rendered without an active request
   context.

.. data:: session
   :noindex:

   The current session object (:class:`flask.session`).  This variable
   is unavailable if the template was rendered without an active request
   context.

.. data:: g
   :noindex:

   The request-bound object for global variables (:data:`flask.g`).  This
   variable is unavailable if the template was rendered without an active
   request context.

.. 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 Behavior

   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 %}


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

Autoescaping is the concept of automatically escaping special characters
for 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:`security-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 generates 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:`~markupsafe.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 variables you are
using in this block.

.. _registering-filters:

Registering Filters, Tests, and Globals
---------------------------------------

The Flask app and blueprints provide decorators and methods to register your own
filters, tests, and global functions for use in Jinja templates. They all follow
the same pattern, so the following examples only discuss filters.

Decorate a function with :meth:`~.Flask.template_filter` to register it as a
template filter.

.. code-block:: python

    @app.template_filter
    def reverse(s):
        return reversed(s)

.. code-block:: jinja

    {% for item in data | reverse %}
    {% endfor %}

By default it will use the name of the function as the name of the filter, but
that can be changed by passing a name to the decorator.

.. code-block:: python

    @app.template_filter("reverse")
    def reverse_filter(s):
        return reversed(s)

A filter can be registered separately using :meth:`~.Flask.add_template_filter`.
The name is optional and will use the function name if not given.

.. code-block:: python

    def reverse_filter(s):
        return reversed(s)

    app.add_template_filter(reverse_filter, "reverse")

For template tests, use the :meth:`~.Flask.template_test` decorator or
:meth:`~.Flask.add_template_test` method. For template global functions, use the
:meth:`~.Flask.template_global` decorator or :meth:`~.Flask.add_template_global`
method.

The same methods also exist on :class:`.Blueprint`, prefixed with ``app_`` to
indicate that the registered functions will be avaialble to all templates, not
only when rendering from within the blueprint.

The Jinja environment is also available as :attr:`~.Flask.jinja_env`. It may be
modified directly, as you would when using Jinja outside Flask.


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, for all templates in the app::

    @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.

Variables are not limited to values; a context processor can also make
functions available to templates (since Python allows passing around
functions)::

    @app.context_processor
    def utility_processor():
        def format_price(amount, currency="€"):
            return f"{amount:.2f}{currency}"
        return dict(format_price=format_price)

The context processor above makes the `format_price` function available to all
templates::

    {{ format_price(0.33) }}

You could also build `format_price` as a template filter (see
:ref:`registering-filters`), but this demonstrates how to pass functions in a
context processor.

Streaming
---------

It can be useful to not render the whole template as one complete
string, instead render it as a stream, yielding smaller incremental
strings. This can be used for streaming HTML in chunks to speed up
initial page load, or to save memory when rendering a very large
template.

The Jinja template engine supports rendering a template piece
by piece, returning an iterator of strings. Flask provides the
:func:`~flask.stream_template` and :func:`~flask.stream_template_string`
functions to make this easier to use.

.. code-block:: python

    from flask import stream_template

    @app.get("/timeline")
    def timeline():
        return stream_template("timeline.html")

These functions automatically apply the
:func:`~flask.stream_with_context` wrapper if a request is active, so
that it remains available in the template.