How to set Django template path properly?

Question

In most recent django documentation "Overriding from the project’s templates directory" https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/howto/overriding-templates/ it shows that you can use the following path for templates:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [BASE_DIR / 'templates'],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        ...
    },
]

I tried using [BASE_DIR / 'templates'] but I keep getting the following error:
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for /: 'str' and 'str'

It all works fine when I change the code to: [BASE_DIR , 'templates'] or [os.path.join(BASE_DIR , 'templates')], no problem in such case.
Can someone explain what am I missing with the [BASE_DIR / 'templates'] line? Thank you.

I'm using Python 3.8 and Django 3.1.

Using `os.path.join()` would be fine, but you shouldn't use `[BASE_DIR , 'templates']` - that is adding two directories to `DIRS` - the base dir itself and `'templates'` (which might work some of the time as a relative directory) — Alasdair, Sep 11 '20 at 10:31

Alasdair · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-11T10:42:08.693

8

In order to use BASE_DIR / 'templates', you need BASE_DIR to be a Path().

from pathlib import Path

BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

I suspect that your settings.py was created with an earlier version of Django, and therefore BASE_DIR is a string, e.g.

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))

edited Sep 11 '20 at 10:42

answered Sep 11 '20 at 10:22

Alasdair

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My setting was created with django 3.0, I later upgraded django to 3.1, but the setting is still there. And indeed it says: ```BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))```, So that could be the right answer. – Andrea Sep 11 '20 at 10:25
All right, I tried and changed settings from ```BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))``` to ```BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent``` and its working fine now. Thank you @Alasdair – Andrea Sep 11 '20 at 10:28

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 14 '21 at 05:50

1

Thank you

from pathlib import Path 
import os

BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

edited Jan 14 '21 at 05:50

answered Jan 14 '21 at 05:27

Manatsapan Chomchansin

11
1

How to set Django template path properly?

2 Answers2

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