Populating a table with dataΒΆ

Tables are compatible with a range of input data structures. If you’ve seen the tutorial you’ll have seen a queryset being used, however any iterable that supports len() and contains items that expose key-based accessed to column values is fine.

An an example we’ll demonstrate using list of dicts. When defining a table it’s necessary to declare each column. If your data matches the fields in a model, columns can be declared automatically for you via the Table.Meta.model option, but for non-queryset data you’ll probably want to declare them manually:

import django_tables2 as tables

data = [
    {"name": "Bradley"},
    {"name": "Stevie"},
]

class NameTable(tables.Table):
    name = tables.Column()

table = NameTable(data)

You can use this technique to override columns that were automatically created via Table.Meta.model too:

# models.py
from django.db import models

class Person(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=200)


# tables.py
import django_tables2 as tables
from .models import Person

class PersonTable(tables.Table):
    name = tables.Column(verbose_name="full name")

    class Meta:
        model = Person