Django form not rendering input fields in template - django

Question

When creating a form bounded to a model in django, it does not render at all.
I have the following model:
class Recipe(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=200)
text = models.TextField()
created_date = models.DateTimeField(
default=timezone.now)
url = models.TextField(validators=[URLValidator()], blank = True)
photo = models.ImageField(upload_to='photos', blank = True)
def publish(self):
self.created_date = timezone.now()
self.save()
def __str__(self):
return self.title
The form:
class RecipeForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = Recipe
fields = ['title', 'text']
The view:
def recipe_new(request):
form = RecipeForm()
return render(request, 'recipe_edit.html', {'form:': form})
The template:
{% extends 'base.html' %}
{% block content %}
<h1>New recipe</h1>
<form method="post" class="recipe-form">{% csrf_token %}
{{ form.as_p }}
<button type="submit" class="save btn btn-default">Save</button>
</form>
{% endblock %}
But only the title "New recipe" and "Save" button is rendered. If I try to print the form variable in my terminal, it prints out correctly. However, the response to the request always comes without the input fields (whether I use form.as_p or just form). Am I passing the form to the template incorrectly or is the form itself wrong?

Answer 1

You wrote:
{'form:': form}
notice the colon (:) in boldface in the key (you write the colon twice, once in the key, and once as a key-value separator). As a result you pass a variable with a name that has a colon in it. Changing the template might help, but I would strongly advice against it, since such characters have typically a specific meaning for template filters, etc. I would therefore advice to only use valid Python identifiers.
Since the name of the variable was form:, using form in the template did not make any sense, since - according to the Django render engine - that variable does not exists, so it resolves it with the string_if_invalid setting of the render engine (by default the empty string).
It should be:
def recipe_new(request):
form = RecipeForm()
return render(request, 'recipe_edit.html', {'form': form})