A simple django basename template filter tag

I'm using Django, a python coded framework to develop web applications, to implement a project for the University.

During the development I needed to have a template tag which, given a path to a file, just returns its basename (just as it do the python os.path.basename).

So I implemented it. Following you have the code for it.

from django import template
from django.template.defaultfilters import stringfilter
import os


register = template.Library()


@register.filter(name='basename')
@stringfilter
def basename(value):
    return os.path.basename(value)

In order to use this tag just:

1. copy the above code into a file called mytags.py under a directory called templatetags just in the same level of your manage.py file in your application root.
2. create an empty __init__.py file in the templatetags directory (so that python knows this is a package)
3. in your template just after the {% extends .. %} tags insert the {% load mytags %} tag.
4. use your new filter to get filenames from a full file path:
   {{ render.media_file|basename }}

Note: The above filter will work also on URLs but only on *nix system as os.path.basename will expect a \ under windows. The filter code should be modified and made more complex to support URLs under windows.. but this is out of my needs now. Post a comment if you implement it or if you just have ideas.

For more informations read Django's documentation on writing custom templates tags and filters.