Assigning a string to a JavaScript var from django

Question

I have the following template:

var url = {{url}};
$.getJSON(url...

and the following view:

return render_to_response('template.html', {"url":"/this/url/"})

but for some reason javascript does not treat this as a string. Is there a reason why? What is the syntax that I should be using?

What does the JavaScript source look like after the template has been parsed? — agf
– agf, Commented Aug 19, 2011 at 2:53
'{{url}}' as stated by everyone else. A little piece of advice, it is never a good idea to get in the habit of having dynamically written JS. Better to write all objects to a single JSON object and then reference in inside your Javascript - much easier to maintain as it keeps all your dynamic objects in one place. — martin
– martin, Commented Aug 19, 2011 at 3:04

Ned Batchelder · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-19 02:53:30Z

3

This line in your template:

var url = {{url}};

Will become this:

var url = /this/url;

There are no quotes in the template, and there are no quotes in the string, so there are no quotes in the output. You should use this:

var url = "{{url}}";

or even better:

var url = "{{url|escapejs}}";

so that special characters will be treated properly.

answered Aug 19, 2011 at 2:53

Ned Batchelder

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