Scope of dictionary passed in render_to_response

Question

def func(user):
    templatename="login.html"
    return render_to_response(templatename,{'user':user},context_instance=RequestContext(request)

What is the scope of the dictionary passed in the render_to_response function in django ? Means could we only use that dictionary in the login.html template or else any template of our app.

Answer 1

The scope of your dict is within login.html only.

If you want to use access to the user in your template, use something like this:

{{user}}

If you want to have a dict with a scope in any template, use context processors

add this in your Settings.py

import django.conf.global_settings as DEFAULT_SETTINGS

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = DEFAULT_SETTINGS.TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS + (
    'utils.custom_context_processors.my_context_processor',
)

create a folder in your project root dir, lets name it "utils", inside the folder create init.py file and custom_context_processors.py

   +apps
   ....other folders.
   +utils
      ---__init__.py
      ---custom_context_processors.py

custom_context_processors.py

def my_context_processor(request):
      your_custom_dict = {...}
      return your_custom_dict

With that, your_custom_dict will be available in any template.

Note: If you only want to access to the user in any place, just do {{request.user}}