Using Django's templating engine without the rest of Django

Question

I'm building an application, that uses the Django templating engine / language to "compile" some HTML. However, the app doesn't run on Django, and doesn't have all the config and stuff. When I try to use it, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "Send.py", line 33, in <module>
    template = loader.get_template("email.html")
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/template/loader.py", line 157, in get_template
    template, origin = find_template(template_name)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/template/loader.py", line 138, in find_template
    raise TemplateDoesNotExist(name)
django.template.base.TemplateDoesNotExist: email.html

The code I am using is the following:

from django.template import loader, Context
from django.conf import settings

template = loader.get_template("email.html")
rendered = template.render(data)

The template is in the same directory as the Python file.

Possible [duplicate](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/98135/how-do-i-use-django-templates-without-the-rest-of-django) — reclosedev, Jan 25 '12 at 12:45
Here's an answer that works on Django >= 1.8 http://stackoverflow.com/a/34494931/817277 — Pramod, Dec 28 '15 at 14:03

Zaur Nasibov · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-25T12:46:13.610

8

I'd recommend using Jinja2 instead of Django templates as a standalone solution.

edited Jan 25 '12 at 12:46

answered Jan 25 '12 at 12:39

Zaur Nasibov

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1

I second that. If you're already familiar with Django templates you'll know how to use Jinja2. They are almost identical but Jinja is better imho. – GivP Jan 25 '12 at 12:49
Jinja2 python3 support is still experimental – niklas Jul 26 '17 at 12:49

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 25 '12 at 13:08

6

Have you tried to use this?

settings.configure(TEMPLATE_DIRS=('.',))

Since the templates are in the same directory as the python code, this should be enough for the loader to find the template.

answered Jan 25 '12 at 13:08

jcollado

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score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 25 '12 at 12:40

In order for the loader to find your templates; you need to have the directory where the templates are located in your TEMPLATE_DIRS tuple in settings.py. By default django will search for a templates directory inside an application so if you don't have an application registered; django cannot find templates.

If you are after a "django like" template engine, jinja is very close to django's syntax and is completely self-contained, you won't run into unexpected issues as you are facing now.

Using Django's templating engine without the rest of Django

3 Answers3