Useful Django templatetag that passes a list of choices from your models.py as a context variable to your templates

django-get-options.py

'''
This Snippet creates a custom template tag for passing a context variable to your template with a list of choices from your models.py i.e

COL_CHOICES =(
            (1, 'Not Applicable'),
            (2, 'Black'),
        )

Usage:
1. Save to template tags dir
2. edit to import the choices you want from your models.py
3. Use in the template like: {% get_options your_choices as variable %}
4. You can then do standard for loops in your templates
'''
from django.template import Library, Node
from django.db.models import get_model
# Change this to import the choices you would like
from myproject.app.models import MY_CHOICES

class OptionsNode(Node):
    def __init__(self, options, varname):
        self.options = options
        self.varname = varname

    def render(self, context):
        context[self.varname] = self.options
        return ''

def get_options(parser, token):
    bits = token.contents.split()

    if len(bits) !=4:
        raise TemplateSyntaxError, "get_options tag takes exactly Four arguments"
    if bits[2] != 'as':
        raise TemplateSyntaxError, "Third argument to get_options tag must be 'as'"
    if bits[1] == 'COL_CHOICES':
        choice = COL_CHOICES 
    return OptionsNode(choice, bits[3])

get_options = register.tag(get_options)