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Python

Posted by Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

macros.html template not found?

Ok, I am building a social network with flask here and I am using workspaces for the first time.

When I use the macros.html inside my register.html. It throws a "templateNotFound macros.html error"

Now If I put strait up html inside the register.html it renders and works fine. So it's exclusive to this macros.html not being able to be found. Now I reference it as macros.html the files name IS macros.html AND they are both in the templates folder. Yet, it still can't find it? I have to be missing something here.

Any thoughts out there??

Here is the register.html

{% from 'macros.html' import render_field %} 

<form method="POST" action= "" class="form">
  {{ form.hidden_tag() }}
  {% for field in form %}
       {{ render_field(field) }}
  {% endfor %}
</form>

Here is the macros.html

{% macro render_field(field) %}
     <div class='field'>
            {% if field.errors %}
                {% for error in field.errors %}
                    <div class="notification error">{{ error }}</div>
                {% endfor %}
            {% endif %}
            {{ field(placeholder=field.label.text) }}
        </div>
{% endmacro %}
Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

It might be easier for someone to track down the error if you can post a snapshot of your workspace.

3 Answers

Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

Hi Ryan,

I finally figured it out. Your macros.html file name has a leading space.

After forking your workspace and verifying the problem I kept staring at the code and not finding a problem.

I then created a new file named macros2.html and copied your code into that file. After updating the import statement it worked.

I decided to use the console to look at the file names. That was when I discovered the leading space.

Here's some console output showing a few of the commands you could use to discover the problem:

treehouse:~/workspace/templates$ ls -b                                                                          
\ macros.html  register.html                                                                                    
treehouse:~/workspace/templates$ ls -1                                                                          
 macros.html                                                                                                    
register.html                                                                                                   
treehouse:~/workspace/templates$ ls -Q                                                                          
" macros.html"  "register.html"                                                                                 
treehouse:~/workspace/templates$

the -b option will print escape sequences for non graphical characters.

I think we don't see this in the left column of workspaces because the browser is going to collapse the whitespace in the html. I used dev tools to find the a tags that are wrapping the filenames and added white-space: pre; to the styles and then I was able to see the leading space on the filename. It's indented slightly more than register.html

When you go to rename the file to fix it you'll be able to see at that point the leading space.

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

I am knees deep in some supercross right now but I will totally try this. I think you are on to something here. Space in the file name sheesh. I would not of caught that. Ill try it and let you know!!! Thanks for responding though because I am stuck. Ill gry it tonight actually just give me a bit.

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

That was it, space in the name of the file. I don't think I would of caught that. Even when I was playing around with it, I renamed it to macro.html and still never noticed the space in the beginning of the file name. You the man! Thanks!

Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,468 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,468 Points

These seems like UI bug with Workspaces that leading spaces are even possible. Reporting to Dev team.

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

Chris Freeman I totally agree.

Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

Hey Chris,

I'm not sure that it's a bug if the underlying file system allows it. As far as I know, Windows, linux, and os x all allow spaces to be in filenames.

If you update the import statement to include the leading space then it would have worked out.

{% from ' macros.html' import render_field %}

So it seems that the underlying file system has no problem in dealing with the leading space.

I was able to create a file with a leading space in sublime text. So I think if it's disallowed in workspaces then it's not going to have the same behavior as other software.

Plus you can create a file with leading spaces in the console so you'd have to decide where you're going to draw the line on not allowing leading spaces.

At the very least, I think the proper html or css could be put in place to preserve these leading spaces. I only tried the css in my answer but using pre tags in the html should achieve the same result. Maybe that's the bug, not preserving the spaces in the source html.

In sublime text I could tell the file had a leading space but you can't in workspaces because of how the browser handles the whitespace.

Of course, it's another matter whether it's a good idea to use filenames with spaces or not.

In any case, let us know if anything comes out of it.

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

Another valid point. Lol

Josh Keenan
Josh Keenan
20,315 Points
Josh Keenan
Josh Keenan
20,315 Points

Hey Ryan, you forgot to tell Flask where the content block is!

{% from 'macros.html' import render_field %} 

{% block content %} 
<form method="POST" action= "" class="form">
  {{ form.hidden_tag() }}
  {% for field in form %}
       {{ render_field(field) }}
  {% endfor %}
</form>
{% endblock %}

Try that out!

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

Hey, See, the error is it can't find macros.html. Now whether or not the block content was there, would only really refer to the content on the page to be rendered. Except, my error says it can't even find the template to render. So that solution wont work.

Regardless I tried your solution considering I have no other options except to do virtualenv activate it and load it into pycharm or eclipse pydev to actually get some debugging on this. Annddd it's still doesn't work. I am open if you have any other suggestions though. Thanks for trying because I appear to be stuck at the moment.

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

The real question is how come the macros.html is not found? The name of the file is correct and it's in the templates folder. I just don't understand this and in workspaces it's impossible to debug.

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,468 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,468 Points

Hey Ryan,

I took the opposite approach, I took a working workspace and hobbled it backwards to get toward your code:

  • Commented out `extends layout.html' code
  • Commented out block content tags
  • I tried overwriting my code with your register and macro HTML files.

It all still worked.

The only way I could cause the jinja template not found error was to misname the macros.html file to macro.html (dropping the 's'). Maybe it's 'htm' instead of 'html'. Please check the filename in the workspace.

Reference: working Workspace with your code: https://w.trhou.se/dfhgowdyjj

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

Hey, thanks for the response. Yeah like you the first thing I thought was, can't find macros.html. So naturally I thought htm instead of html and then I thought I spelled it wrong. I am 100 percent positive the names are right. UNLESS my eyes are literally deceiving me, which is the only real logical thing I can think of lol. let me snapshot my workspace and send it. Than you can see for yourself.

Ryan Ruscett
Ryan Ruscett
23,309 Points

https://w.trhou.se/0qqfggol8e

SNAPSHOT here it is.