How to do fine control of view rendering in Pyramid

Question

The conventional way seems fine:

@view_config(route_name='new', renderer='new.mako')
    return {'tasks': tasks}

But sometimes I may need to have fine control of what I am rendering, ie I may render different views subject to conditions. See this pseudocode:

@view_config(route_name='new')
def new_view(request):
    if request.att == something:
        one_dict = ...
        a = render( "new.mako", one_dict)
    else:
        another_dict = ...
        a = render( "new_special.mako", one_dict)
    return a

How do I render an arbitary template myself with Pyramid's Mako engine and return it as a response?

Answer 1

You can use the render_to_response() renderer here:

Using the renderer renderer_name (a template or a static renderer), render the value (or set of values) using the result of the renderer's __call__ method (usually a string or Unicode) as the response body.

For your code that'd be:

@view_config(route_name='new')
def new_view(request):
    if request.att == something:
        one_dict = ...
        a = render_to_response("new.mako", one_dict)
    else:
        another_dict = ...
        a = render_to_response("new_special.mako", one_dict)
    return a

or perhaps:

@view_config(route_name='new')
def new_view(request):
    if request.att == something:
        renderer = "new.mako"
    else:
        renderer = "new_special.mako"
    return render_to_response(renderer, values)