Jinja Macro Tags

Jinja Macro Tags introduces a new syntax to call macros as well as an automatic macro loader.

Installation

pip install jinja-macro-tags

Macro tags

Macro tags allow you to use Jinja's macros with a syntax similar to html tags. There are two types of macro tags: inline and block. Inline is the equivalent of calling the macro using {{ macro_name() }} and block is equivalent to the {% call %} directive.

Inline directives are enclosed in <{ and }/>. Arguments can be provided the same was as html attributes but their values are Jinja expressions.

Inline tag example:

<{macro_name arg1=value1 arg2=value2 }/>

is equivalent to:

{{ macro_name(arg1=value1, arg2=value2) }}

Block tags, start with an opening directive enclosed in <{ and }> and must be closed with a closing directive </{macro_name}> (note that the macro name is optional in the closing directive).

Block tag example:

<{macro_name arg1=value1 arg2=value2 }>
    my macro content
</{macro_name}>

is equivalent to:

{% call macro_name(arg1=value1, arg2=value2) %}
    my macro content
{% endcall %}

To use macro tags, you'll need to add the jinja_macro_tags.CallMacroTagExtension and jinja_macro_tags.JinjaMacroTagsExtension extensions to your environment.

from jinja2 import Environment, PackageLoader

env = Environment(loader=PackageLoader(__name__, 'templates'))
env.add_extension('jinja_macro_tags.CallMacroTagExtension')
env.add_extension('jinja_macro_tags.JinjaMacroTagsExtension')

(Note that this does not autoload macros, you will still need to include your import statements)

Macro registry

The macro registry allows you to load macros by name. Macros can be registered from templates but also from any jinja files not accessible from your loader.

When using in conjunction with macro tags, you don't even need to load macros, the macro tags will use the registry to automatically load them.

The registry requires two things:

• wrapping your template loader in an instance of jinja_macro_tags.MacroLoader
• adding the jinja_macro_tags.LoadMacroExtension extension.

To make things easier you can use the configure_environment function. It will automatically wrap the environment loader and add the extension. By default, it will also add the CallMacroTagExtension and the JinjaMacroTagsExtension extensions but this can be disabled with with_jinja_tags=False.

from jinja2 import Environment, PackageLoader
from jinja_macro_tags import configure_environment

env = Environment(loader=PackageLoader(__name__, 'templates'))
configure_environment(env)

Without macro tags:

configure_environment(env, with_jinja_tags=False)

Once configured, you can register macros against the macro registry available through the macros attribute of the environment.

You can register macros from templates available through your loader:

• register_from_template(template): register all macros defined in the template
• register(name, template): register the specified macro located in the template
• register_from_environment(): look for macros in every templates

You can also register macros using templates not accessible from your environment loader:

• register_file(filename)
• register_directory(path)
• register_package(package_name, package_path='macros')

Note that files added using this methods, will be accessible from your environment using the macros prefix.
You can create macro aliases using the alias(name, alias) method.

To load your macros, use the load_macro directive which takes a list of macro names as arguments:

{% load_macro form_tag, form_field %}

Once again, no need to use this directive if you are using macro tags.

Full example

In app.py:

from jinja2 import Environment, PackageLoader
from jinja_macro_tags import configure_environment

env = Environment(loader=PackageLoader(__name__, 'templates'))
configure_environment(env)
env.macros.register_file('macros.html')

print env.get_template('form.html').render()

In macros.html:

{% macro form_tag(action) %}
    <form action="{{ action }}" method="post">
        {{ caller() }}
    </form>
{% endmacro %}

{% macro form_input(name) %}
    <input type="text" name="{{ name }}">
{% endmacro %}

In templates/form.html:

<{form action="/" }>
    <{form_input name="email" }/>
</{form}>