[Django]-Django inclusion tag with configurable template

I use simple_tag when i need to do that:

from django.template import Library, loader, Context

@register.simple_tag(takes_context=True)
def my_tag(context, template_name):

    var1 = ...

    t = loader.get_template(template_name)
    return t.render(Context({
        'var1': var1,
        ...
    }))

This post saved my life: http://djangosnippets.org/snippets/1329/

The key is to add to a "dummy template":

{% extends template %}

I had to do something like this for a project and since we needed more than one of this kind of inclusion tag I made a decorator based on django inclusion_tag decorator. This is the code:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from django import template
from inspect import getargspec
from django.template.context import Context
from django.template import Node, generic_tag_compiler, Variable
from django.utils.functional import curry


def inclusion_tag(register, context_class=Context, takes_context=False):
    def dec(func):
        params, xx, xxx, defaults = getargspec(func)
        if takes_context:
            if params[0] == 'context':
                params = params[1:]
            else:
                raise TemplateSyntaxError("Any tag function decorated with takes_context=True must have a first argument of 'context'")

        class InclusionNode(Node):
            def __init__(self, vars_to_resolve):
                self.vars_to_resolve = map(Variable, vars_to_resolve)

            def render(self, context):
                resolved_vars = [var.resolve(context) for var in self.vars_to_resolve]
                if takes_context:
                    args = [context] + resolved_vars
                else:
                    args = resolved_vars

                file_name, extra_context = func(*args)

                from django.template.loader import get_template, select_template
                if not isinstance(file_name, basestring) and is_iterable(file_name):
                    t = select_template(file_name)
                else:
                    t = get_template(file_name)
                self.nodelist = t.nodelist
                new_context = context_class(extra_context, autoescape=context.autoescape)
                # Copy across the CSRF token, if present, because inclusion
                # tags are often used for forms, and we need instructions
                # for using CSRF protection to be as simple as possible.
                csrf_token = context.get('csrf_token', None)
                if csrf_token is not None:
                    new_context['csrf_token'] = csrf_token
                return self.nodelist.render(new_context)

        compile_func = curry(generic_tag_compiler, params, defaults, getattr(func, "_decorated_function", func).__name__, InclusionNode)
        compile_func.__doc__ = func.__doc__
        register.tag(getattr(func, "_decorated_function", func).__name__, compile_func)
        return func
    return dec

You have to return a tuple with the template (or template list) and the context dict. Note that you have to pass the register (Library instance) in the decorator call:

from somewhere import inclusion_tag
@inclusion_tag(register)
def display_formset(formset):
    template_name = FORMSET_TEMPLATES.get(formset.model,
        'includes/inline_formset.html')
    return (template_name, {'formset': formset})

Hope this helps

A solution could be a regular inclusion_tag which pass dynamic template name to context.

Like this :

# templatetags/tags.py

@register.inclusion_tag('include_tag.html', takes_context=True)
def tag_manager(context):
    context.update({
        'dynamic_template': resolve_template(context),
    })
    return context

And the template:

<!-- include_tag.html -->

{% include dynamic_template %}

The tricks here is, when I call {% tag_manager %}, it includes include_tag.html which in turn includes the template returned by resolve_template() (not included for brevity).

Hope this helps…

A variation of the @cvng‘s answer that doesn’t require creating an include_tag.html template:

@register.inclusion_tag(template.Template('{% include dynamic_template %}'),
                        takes_context=True)
def dynamic_tag(context):
    context.update({
        'dynamic_template': 'path/to/your/template.html',
    })
    return context