template.render() Google App Engine (python)

Question

I'm using the webapp framework from google for this. I'm using template.render() in a get method to render a template for me.

I'm using the following code to do this for me

path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), file_name)
self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values))

Where file_name is the template to render and template_values is a dict() containing any values to be rendered. What if I don't have any values that I want rendered. Do I just pass in an empty dict() object? It doesn't seem like a great solution to me. Should I be using template.load() instead?

(I can't find the docs for the template class over on google app engine either, hence I'm asking.)

Answer 1

You can pass an empty dictionary to it and it doesn't mind. You just have to send it something. Your templates just won't display anything.

template_values = {}

path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), file_name)
self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values))

Answer 2

Okay, thanks for all the answers.

What I've done is:

def render_template(template_name, template_values=dict()):
   path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), template_name)
   self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values))

Which seems to be the most pythonic solution I could come up with.