The {% url %} Tag in Templates

Why Use {% url %} Instead of Hardcoding

{% url %} looks up a URL pattern by its registered name and builds the actual path from it, so links automatically stay correct if the underlying pattern changes.

Example: Why Use {% url %} Instead of Hardcoding

This renders as <a href="/about/">, generated from the URL pattern named about rather than a hardcoded string.

<!-- urls.py has: path('about/', views.about, name='about') -->
<a href="{% url 'about' %}">About Us</a>

Passing Arguments to {% url %}

When a URL pattern has dynamic segments (like an ID), pass the matching values directly after the URL name in {% url %}.

Warning: Passing the wrong number of arguments raises a NoReverseMatch error at render time.

Example: Passing Arguments to {% url %}

article.id is passed as the URL argument, producing a link like /articles/7/ for an article whose id is 7.

<!-- urls.py has: path('articles/<int:article_id>/', views.detail, name='article-detail') -->
<a href="{% url 'article-detail' article.id %}">{{ article.title }}</a>

Naming URL Patterns for Reuse

Every path() intended for use with {% url %} must declare a unique name, which is what the tag actually looks up.

Example: Naming URL Patterns for Reuse

These two names, home and about, are exactly what {% url home %} and {% url about %} in templates will resolve.

from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.home, name='home'),
    path('about/', views.about, name='about'),
]