Django – Absolute media URIs from templates

Loïs Di Qual — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:54:17 +0000

Sometimes, you need to build an absolute URI to a media file from your templates:

1	http://example.com/media/sample.jpg

After following this small tutorial, you’ll be able to do this:

1 2	{% load mytemplatetags %} {{ media_name\|absolute_media_url:request }}

Settings

In urls.py, in urlpatterns, add a reverse name to the media URL:

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urlpatterns = patterns('',
# Before
(r'^media/(?P.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT}),
# After
url(r'^media/(?P.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT}, name="media"),
)

You can now reverse media files using request.build_absolute_uri(reverse('media', args=['/path/to/media'])).

In settings.py, add django.core.context_processors.request to TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS.

This context processor allows you to access the request.build_absolute_uri() function from templates:

1	{{ request.build_absolute_uri }}

However, you can’t pass parameters to this function, so you won’t be able to reverse media path to URL. That’s why we need a filter.

Absolute url for a media

The following filter will allow you to build an absolute URL to a media. In templatetags/mytemplatetags.py:

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'''
Usage: {{ media|absolute_media_url:request }}
'''
@register.filter
def absolute_media_uri(media, request):
return request.build_absolute_uri(reverse('media', args=[unicode(media)]))

Don’t forget to add a blank __init__.py in templatetags/ or django won’t take your template tag into account.

Code-It » templates

Django – Absolute media URIs from templates

Settings

Absolute url for a media