how to pass common dictionary data to every pages in django

Question

I have a common data {the logged-in user's message number) to display on every page. I can simply pass to template as

dict={'messagenumber':5}
return render_to_response('template.html',dict,context_instance=RequestContext(request))

But it looks tedious if i have this dict data pass to very page. Is there an easier way to pass common data to every page?

Thanks

Answer 1

Write your own function to handle it.

def render_with_message_number(template, message_number, request):
    return render_to_response(template, dict(messagenumber=message_number),
        context_instance=RequestContext(request))

And don't shadow dict.

Answer 2

It blows me away how common this is. You want to use context processors my friend!

Very easy to create, like so:

def messagenumber_processor(request):
   return {'messagenumber': 5}

Since messagenumber is a dynamic variable based on the User, you could pull data from the database by fetching from request.user as you have full access to request within each context processor.

Then, add that to your TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS within settings.py and you're all set :-) You can do any form of database operation or other logic within the context processor as well, try it out!