How to access a dictionary element in a Django template?

choices = {'key1':'val1', 'key2':'val2'}

Here's the template:

<ul>
{% for key, value in choices.items %} 
  <li>{{key}} - {{value}}</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>

Basically, .items is a Django keyword that splits a dictionary into a list of (key, value) pairs, much like the Python method .items(). This enables iteration over a dictionary in a Django template.

you can use the dot notation:

Dot lookups can be summarized like this: when the template system encounters a dot in a variable name, it tries the following lookups, in this order:

• Dictionary lookup (e.g., foo["bar"])
• Attribute lookup (e.g., foo.bar)
• Method call (e.g., foo.bar())
• List-index lookup (e.g., foo[2])

The system uses the first lookup type that works. It’s short-circuit logic.

To echo / extend upon Jeff's comment, what I think you should aim for is simply a property in your Choice class that calculates the number of votes associated with that object:

class Choice(models.Model):
    text = models.CharField(max_length=200)

    def calculateVotes(self):
        return Vote.objects.filter(choice=self).count()

    votes = property(calculateVotes)

And then in your template, you can do:

{% for choice in choices %}
    {{choice.choice}} - {{choice.votes}} <br />
{% endfor %}

The template tag, is IMHO a bit overkill for this solution, but it's not a terrible solution either. The goal of templates in Django is to insulate you from code in your templates and vice-versa.

I'd try the above method and see what SQL the ORM generates as I'm not sure off the top of my head if it will pre-cache the properties and just create a subselect for the property or if it will iteratively / on-demand run the query to calculate vote count. But if it generates atrocious queries, you could always populate the property in your view with data you've collected yourself.

You need to find (or define) a 'get' template tag, for example, here.

The tag definition:

@register.filter
def hash(h, key):
    return h[key]

And it’s used like:

{% for o in objects %}
  <li>{{ dictionary|hash:o.id }}</li>
{% endfor %}

Similar to the answer by @russian_spy :

<ul>
{% for choice in choices.items %} 
  <li>{{choice.0}} - {{choice.1}}</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>

This might be suitable for breaking down more complex dictionaries.