Django templates: overriding blocks of included children templates through an extended template

Question

It seems to be little known that you can use the with keyword with the include to pass variables into the context of an included template – you can use it to specify includes in the included template:

# base.html
<html>
    <body>
        {% block header %}{% include "header.html" %}{% endblock %}
    </body>
</html>

# header.html
# some stuff here
<div id="header">
    <img src="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9996428/logo.png">
    {% include nav_tmpl|default:"navigation.html" %}
</div>

# special_page.html (uses other navigation)
{% extends "base.html" %}
{% block header %}
    {% include "header.html" with nav_tmpl="special_nav.html" %}
    # you might also want to wrap the include in an 'if' tag if you don't want anything
    # included here per default 
{% endblock %}

This approach saves you at least from having one additional file just for the purpose of overwriting a block. You can also use the with keyword to pass a value through a bigger hierarchy of includes as well.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply