The slice tag in Django templates may use python's slicing code, but the syntax is unmistakably different. For instance, if you wanted to get an element of a sequence with a variable, in python you'd write something similar to the following:
>>>mylist = ["0th Element", "1th Element"]
>>>zero, one = 0, 1
>>>mylist[zero]
"0th Element"
>>>mylist[one]
"1th Element"
Using this syntax with the Django slice template tag will return a sliced list in every case, of dubious utility for getting an item of known index:
{% with "0" as zero %}
{% with "1" as one %}
{% with "2" as two %}
{{mylist|slice:zero}} {{mylist|slice:one}} {{mylist|slice:two}}
{% endwith %}
{% endwith %}
{% endwith %}
Renders to the html:
[] ["0th Element"] ["0th Element", "1th Element"]
Note the differences: you are getting the result of mylist[:x]
instead of mylist[x]
.
Django provides enough tools to work around this. The first trick is to use explicit slices like 0:1
for your indices, and then |join:""
the resultant list into a single element. Like so:
{% with "0:1" as zero %}
{{mylist|slice:zero|join:""}}
{% endwith %}
Yields:
0th Element
This comes in particularly handy if you need to access a parent loop's index when dealing with an iterable inside a child loop:
{% for parent in parent_loop %}
{% cycle "0:1" "1:2" "2:3" as parent_loop_index silent %}
{% for child in child_loop %}
{{child|slice:parent_loop_index|join:""}}
{% endfor %}
{% endfor %}
Completed with nothing but stock parts, although I don't think Django has implemented achievements yet.