Determine model field type from within my template?

Python, Perl and Golang Python
1

I can’t seem to determine what a model’s field type is from within a template. I’m iterating through all rows and fields and want to implement special handling for certain field types, but it doesn’t work. Here’s how my object looks in models.py:


class MyModel(models.Model)
    Field1 = models.CharField(max_length=30)
    Field2 = models.DateTimeField()

And this is what is in views.py:


def MyView(request):
    entries = serializers.serialize( "python", MyModel.objects.all()[:10] )
    return render_to_response('MyTemplate.html', entries, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

And finally, my template file:


<table>        
    {% for entry in entries %}
            <tr>        
            {% for field, value in entry.fields.items %}
                    <td>
                    {% if field|field_type = "DateTimeField" %}    
                                        hooray!, this is a DateTimeField
                    {% else %}   
                                        boo! no this is not a DateTimeField!
                    {% endif %}
                    </td>
            {% endfor %}
            </tr>
    {% endfor %}    
</table>

You’d think that I’d end up with one “hooray” and one “boo”, but I’m getting all “boo”'s
I’ve tried “field.type” and a number of other ways but nothing seems to return what I’m looking for. Can anyone offer help on this?

2

Sorry, not “scripting dictionary”. Anyhow…

Nobody responded, but I did find a solution, so I’ll post it here for the sake of being polite in case someone else has the same problem in the future. I decided to just use a nested dictionary instead of going with the serialized solution previously posted. So my model is the same, but here’s my new view:



def MyView(request):
	MyQuerySet = MyModel.objects.all()[:10]
	MyDictionary = {}
	RowNumber = 0
	for row in MyQuerySet:
		NestedDictionary = {}	
		ColumnNumber = 0	
		for column in row._meta.fields:
			if  column.verbose_name != "ID":
				fieldtype = str(type(column)).replace("'>", "").replace("<class 'django.db.models.fields.", "")
				NestedDictionary.update({str(ColumnNumber):
							{'name': column.verbose_name,
							'value': getattr(row, column.verbose_name),
							'type': fieldtype}
							})
				ColumnNumber = ColumnNumber + 1
		MyDictionary.update({str(RowNumber): NestedDictionary})
		RowNumber = RowNumber + 1
	ctx = {}
	ctx.update({'MyDictionary':MyDictionary})
	return render_to_response('MyTemplate.html', ctx, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

…and here’s my template:


<table cellpadding="1px" cellspacing="1px" border="1px">
{% for key, row in MyDictionary.items %}
	<tr>		
		{% for key2, field in row.items %}
			<td>
	                    {% if field.type == "DateTimeField" %}    
	                         hooray!, this is a DateTimeField
                            {% else %}   
                                 boo! no this is not a DateTimeField!
                           {% endif %}
			</td>
		{% endfor %}
	</tr>
{% endfor %}
</table>
3

Since someone else writes the var names with a lot of our stuff, I make pretty heavy use of stuff like

<p>{{ field | pprint }}</p>

in my pages. I do this a lot for objects/dictionaries where I’m not sure what all properties they have, or I know they have some kind of property but not its name.

Or, if I’m looking at the shop running in a terminal, in the .py file I can
print field

to see in the terminal, but prettyprint in JInja2 makes a nice filter.

This is a quick poor-man’s debugging/development tool, but it’ll give you a better idea of what your objects actually have in them, and what to call individuals inside.