Django: accessing session variables from within a template?

If I set a session variable in Django, like:

request.session["name"] = "name"

Is there a way I can access it from within a template, or do I have to retrieve it from within a view, and then pass it to a template?

Asking because I have around 10 little session variables that I'd like to access within a template, and passing all 10 from the view to the template could get a bit messy.

(I have to use session variables because it's a HttpResponseRedirect, but storing the variables in a database is overkill for my purposes.)

So - any way to grab session variables directly within a template?

You need to add django.template.context_processors.request to your template context processors. Then you can access them like this:

{{ request.session.name }}

In case you are using custom views make sure you are passing a RequestContext instance. Example taken from documentation:

from django.shortcuts import render_to_response
from django.template import RequestContext

def some_view(request):
    # ...
    return render_to_response('my_template.html',
                              my_data_dictionary,
                              context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Update 2013: Judging by the upvotes I'm still receiving for this answer, people are still finding it helpful, more than three years after it was originally written. Please note however, that although the view code above is still valid, nowadays there is a much simpler way of doing this. render() is a function very similar to render_to_response(), but it uses RequestContext automatically, without a need to pass it explicitly:

from django.shortcuts import render

def some_view(request):
    # ...
    return render(request, 'my_template.html', my_data_dictionary)

request.session is a dictionary like any other, so you just use the normal template mechanism for attributes and members:

{{ request.session.name }}

Don't forget to pass the request into the template context, or even better ensure you are using RequestContext and have the request context processor enabled. See the documentation.

I am using Django 1.9 (March 2016) and to get {{ request.session.name}} to work, my settings have this::

TEMPLATES = [
{
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
    'DIRS': [],
    'APP_DIRS': True,
    'OPTIONS': {
        'context_processors': [
            'django.template.context_processors.debug',
            'django.template.context_processors.request',
            'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
            'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

The difference from the previous answers is: 'django.core.context_processors.request' became 'django.template.context_processors.request'

You can pass a request variable to a template and there use:

{{ request.session.name }}

the simplest implementation is using if loop :

{% if 'data' in request.session %}

First print request.session.keys() then

request.session['_auth_user_id']
request.session['_auth_user_backend']

You will get these two session variables.

In your settins.py

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = (
    'django.core.context_processors.request',
    'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth'
)

Your view, maybe look like this.

from django.shortcuts import render_to_response, render
from django.http import HttpResponse, HttpResponseRedirect
from django.template import RequestContext

@login_required()
def index_admin(request):
    return render_to_response('carteras/index_admin.html', {}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Continuing @Ludwik Trammer answer, How to add TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS

For django 1.6, in settings.py add TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS referring the below code and then use {{ request.session.name }} in template files.

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = ("django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth",
"django.core.context_processors.debug",
"django.core.context_processors.i18n",
"django.core.context_processors.media",
"django.core.context_processors.static",
"django.core.context_processors.tz",
"django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages",
"django.core.context_processors.request")

Reference https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/ref/settings/#std:setting-TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS

Pls note that, you should use that complete code in settings. Using "django.core.context_processors.request" alone will result in overriding the default settings.

Maybe a bit too late now. If you directly set TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS in settings.py, you will lose all default TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS value. Here is what I do in my settings.py:

from django.conf.global_settings import TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS as DEFAULT_TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = DEFAULT_TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS + (
    'django.core.context_processors.request',
)

**

This answer is for those using Django 3.0 and above

**

You don't need to pass the session variables from the views as the sessions are stored in django_sessions table in your database. So just use return redirect('/')to simulate passing none without errors.

In index.html file:

• If there's only single data in the session variable, use

  {{ request.session.your_session_varaible_name }}

• If you have multiple data in the session variable like a list, it can be accessed by

{% if 'cart_prod' in request.session %} {% for cart_products in request.session.cart_prod %}
<tr>
  <td style="padding: 25px">
    {{ cart_products }}
  </td>
  <tr>
    {% endfor %} {% endif %}

{{ request.session.name_of_session_key }}