Python Django Templates and testing if a variable is null or empty string

Question

I am pretty new to django, but have many years experience coding in the java world, so I feel ridiculous asking this question - I am sure the answer is obvious and I am just missing it. I can't seem to find the right way to query this in google or something... I have searched through the django docs and it either isn't there or I am just not seeing it. All I want to do is in a template test if the var is not null OR an empty string OR just a bunch of spaces. I have an issue where spaces are getting introduced into my field - another issue I have to, and will, work out... but, I want my logic to work regardless. Right now, because my string contains just spaces simply doing this: {% if lesson.assignment %} always passes even though I don't want it to. I have looked for a trim type functionality that would work between {% %}, but I can't seem to find anything. I have tried strip, but it doesn't work between {% %}. Can someone please point me in the direction of the answer... some docs I might have missed... something?

Thanks a ton in advance!

Answer 1

{% if lesson.assignment and lesson.assignment.strip %} 

The .strip calls str.strip() so you can handle whitespace-only strings as empty, while the preceding check makes sure we weed out None first (which would not have the .strip() method)

Proof that it works (in ./manage.py shell):

>>> import django >>> from django.template import Template, Context >>> t = Template("{% if x and x.strip %}OK{% else %}Empty{% endif %}") >>> t.render(Context({"x": "ola"})) u'OK' >>> t.render(Context({"x": "   "})) u'Empty' >>> t.render(Context({"x": ""})) u'Empty' >>> t.render(Context({"x": None})) u'Empty'