Comma separated lists in django templates

Question

If fruits is the list [\'apples\', \'oranges\', \'pears\'],

is there a quick way using django template tags to produce \"apples, oranges, and p

Answer 1

Django doesn't have support for this out-of-the-box. You can define a custom filter for this:

from django import template


register = template.Library()


@register.filter
def join_and(value):
    """Given a list of strings, format them with commas and spaces, but
    with 'and' at the end.

    >>> join_and(['apples', 'oranges', 'pears'])
    "apples, oranges, and pears"

    """
    # convert numbers to strings
    value = [str(item) for item in value]

    if len(value) == 1:
        return value[0]

    # join all but the last element
    all_but_last = ", ".join(value[:-1])
    return "%s, and %s" % (all_but_last, value[-1])

However, if you want to deal with something more complex than just lists of strings, you'll have to use an explicit {% for x in y %} loop in your template.