Django Render Block

Render the content of a specific block tag from a Django template. Works for arbitrary template inheritance, even if a block is defined in the child template but not in the parent. Generally it works like render_to_string from Django, but allows you to specify a block to render.

Features

• Render a specific block from a template
• Fully supports the Django templating engine
• Partially supports the Jinja2 engine: it does not currently process the extends tag.

Requirements

Django Render Block supports Django 4.2, 5.1, and 5.2 on Python 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13 (see the Django documentation for which versions of Python are supported by particular Django versions).

Examples

In test1.html:

{% block block1 %}block1 from test1{% endblock %}
{% block block2 %}block2 from test1{% endblock %}

In test2.html:

{% extends 'test1.html' %}
{% block block1 %}block1 from test2{% endblock %}

And from the Python shell:

>>> from render_block import render_block_to_string
>>> print(render_block_to_string('test2.html', 'block1'))
'block1 from test2'
>>> print(render_block_to_string('test2.html', 'block2'))
'block2 from test1'

It can also accept a context as a dict (just like render_to_string), in test3.html:

{% block block3 %}Render this {{ variable }}!{% endblock %}

And from Python:

>>> print(render_block_to_string('test3.html', 'block3', {'variable': 'test'}))
'Render this test!'

API Reference

The API is simple and attempts to mirror the built-in render_to_string and render API.

render_block_to_string(template_name, block_name, context=None, request=None)

template_name

The name of the template to load and render. If it’s a list of template names, Django uses select_template() instead of get_template() to find the template.

block_name

The name of the block to render from the above template.

context

A dict to be used as the template’s context for rendering. A Context object can be provided for Django templates.

context is optional. If not provided, an empty context will be used.

request

The request object used to render the template.

request is optional and works only for Django templates. If both context and request are provided, a RequestContext will be used instead of a Context.

Similarly there is a render_block function which returns an HttpResponse with the content sent to the result of render_block_to_string with the same parameters.

render_block(request, template_name, block_name, context=None, content_type="text/html", status=200)

request

The request object used to render the template.

template_name

The name of the template to load and render. If it’s a list of template names, Django uses select_template() instead of get_template() to find the template.

block_name

The name of the block to render from the above template.

context

A dict to be used as the template’s context for rendering. A Context object can be provided for Django templates.

context is optional. If not provided, an empty context will be used.

content_type

A str content type for the HTTP response.

status

An int HTTP status code for the HTTP response.

Exceptions

Like render_to_string this will raise the following exceptions:

TemplateDoesNotExists

Raised if the template(s) specified by template_name cannot be loaded.

TemplateSyntaxError

Raised if the loaded template contains invalid syntax.

There are also two additional errors that can be raised:

BlockNotFound

Raised if the block given by block_name does not exist in the template.

UnsupportedEngine

Raised if a template backend besides the Django backend is used.

Contributing

If you find a bug or have an idea for an improvement to Django Render Block, please file an issue or provide a pull request! Check the list of issues for ideas of what to work on.

Attribution

This is based on a few sources:

• Originally Django Snippet 769
• Updated version Django Snippet 942
• A version of the snippets was ported as Django-Block-Render
• Additionally inspired by part of django-templated-email
• Also based on a StackOverflow answer 2687173