How to put braces in django templates?

Question

I need to produce an id surrounded by braces ( for example "{1234}" ). With the django template language, braces are also used to start a variable substitution, so I have some trouble in obtaining what I want. I tried

{{{ id }}}
{{ '{'id'}' }}
{{ '{'+id+'}' }}
{ {{ id }} }

None of these methods work, except the last one, which unfortunately produces "{ 1234 }", not what I want. I currently have two solutions : either I pass an id variable already containing the {} (ugly) or I write a custom filter and then write {{ id|add_braces }} (I prefer it).

Before going this way, I prefer to ask if a better solution exists.

Using escaped values does not work. Even if I add {% autoescape off %}%7B{% endautoescape %} I don't get the {, which is strange, but that's another problem.

Thanks

Edit: I wrote a quick filter. Pasting it here so someone else can use it as a template for writing a more complex one. To be put into python package application_path/templatetags/formatting.py

from django import template
from django.template.defaultfilters import stringfilter

register = template.Library()

@register.filter
@stringfilter
def add_braces(value):
    return "{"+value+"}"

Answer 1

I think your answer can be found here:

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/templates/builtins/#templatetag

In short, you want to use {% templatetag openbrace %} and {% templatetag closebrace %}.

Edit: Django now also includes this functionality out of the box:

{% verbatim %} {{ blah blah }} {% endverbatim %}

Answer 2

{% templatetag openbrace %} become extremely verbose for e.g. javascript templates

I've used the verbatim tag from this gist with some success for exactly this purpose which lets you do something like

{{ request.user }}
{% verbatim %}
     brackets inside here are left alone, which is handy for e.g. jquery templates
     {{ this will be left }}
     {% so will this %}
{% endverbatim }}

{% more regular tags (to be replaced by the django template engine %}

Answer 3

The recommendation from the Jinja templating language works with the Django templating engine as well:

http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/dev/templates/#escaping

The solution is this:

{{ '{' }}{{ id }}{{ '}' }}

Of course the other two answers work, but this is one is less verbose and more readable, in my opinion.