Django 1.11 TypeError context must be a dict rather than Context

Question

Just received the Sentry error TypeError context must be a dict rather than Context. on one of my forms. I know it has something to do with Django 1.11, but I am not sure what to change to fix it.

Offending line

message = get_template('email_forms/direct_donation_form_email.html').render(Context(ctx))

Entire View

def donation_application(request):     if request.method == 'POST':         form = DirectDonationForm(data=request.POST)         if form.is_valid():             stripe.api_key = settings.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY             name = request.POST.get('name', '')             address = request.POST.get('address', '')             city = request.POST.get('city', '')             state = request.POST.get('state', '')             zip = request.POST.get('zip', '')             phone_number = request.POST.get('phone_number', '')             support = request.POST.get('support', '')             agree = request.POST.get('agree', '')             email_address = request.POST.get('email_address', '')             number = request.POST.get('number', '')             cvc = request.POST.get('cvc', '')             exp = request.POST.get('exp', '')             # token = form.cleaned_data['stripe_token'],             # exp_m = int(request.POST.get('exp_month', ''))             # exp_y = int(request.POST.get('exp_year', ''))              exp_month = exp[0:2]             exp_year = exp[5:9]              subject = 'New Donation'             from_email = settings.DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL             recipient_list = ['deniselarkins@/////\\\\\.com',                               'charles@/////\\\\\.net',                               'marcmunic@/////\\\\\.com',                               ]              token = stripe.Token.create(                 card={                     'number': number,                     'exp_month': exp_month,                     'exp_year': exp_year,                     'cvc': cvc                 },             )              customer = stripe.Customer.create(                 email=email_address,                 source=token,             )              total_support = decimal.Decimal(support) / 100             total_charge = decimal.Decimal(int(support)) / 100              # Charge the user's card:             charge = stripe.Charge.create(                 amount=total_charge,                 currency='usd',                 description='Donation',                 customer=customer.id             )              ctx = {                 'name': name,                 'address': address,                 'city': city,                 'state': state,                 'zip': zip,                 'phone_number': phone_number,                 'email_address': email_address,                 'agree': agree,                 'charge': charge,                 'customer': customer,                 'total_support': total_support,                 'total_charge': total_charge             }              message = get_template('email_forms/direct_donation_form_email.html').render(Context(ctx))             msg = EmailMessage(subject, message, from_email=from_email, to=recipient_list)             msg.content_subtype = 'html'             msg.send(fail_silently=True)              return redirect(                 '/contribute/donation-support-thank-you/?name=' + name +                 '&address=' + address +                 '&state=' + state +                 '&city=' + city +                 '&zip=' + zip +                 '&phone_number=' + phone_number +                 '&email_address=' + email_address +                 '&total_support=' + str(total_support) +                 '&total_charge=' + str(total_charge)             )     context = {         'title': 'Donation Pledge',     }      return render(request, 'contribute/_donation-application.html', context) 

Answer 1

In Django 1.8+, the template's render method takes a dictionary for the context parameter. Support for passing a Context instance is deprecated, and gives an error in Django 1.10+.

In your case, just use a regular dict instead of a Context instance:

message = get_template('email_forms/direct_donation_form_email.html').render(ctx) 

You may prefer to use the render_to_string shortcut:

from django.template.loader import render_to_string  message = render_to_string('email_forms/direct_donation_form_email.html', ctx) 

If you were using RequestContext instead of Context, then you would pass the request to these methods as well so that the context processors run.

message = get_template('email_forms/direct_donation_form_email.html').render(ctx, request=request) message = render_to_string('email_forms/direct_donation_form_email.html', ctx, request=request) 

Answer 2

Migrated from Django 1.8 to Django 1.11.6

Wherever i had a RequestContext class, there is a method flatten() wich return the result as a dict.

So if the class is RequestContext....

return t.render(context) 

becomes

return t.render(context.flatten()) 

And in a case wich the context is is wrapped by Context(), just remove it. Because Context() is deprecated.

return t.render(Context(ctx)) 

becomes

return t.render(ctx)