How to access outermost forloop.counter with nested for loops in Django templates?

Question

Is it possible to access the forloop.counter for the outermost for loop in the following template in Django:

{% for outerItem in outerItems %}
    {% for item in items%}
        <div>{{ forloop.counter }}.&nbsp;{{ item }}</div>
    {% endfor %}
{% endfor %}

forloop.counter returns the innermost for loop's counter in the above example

Answer 1

You can use forloop.parentloop to get to the outer forloop, so in your case {{forloop.parentloop.counter}}.

Answer 2

you can also use with

Caches a complex variable under a simpler name. This is useful when accessing an “expensive” method (e.g., one that hits the database) multiple times.

{% for outerItem in outerItems %}
  {% with forloop.counter as outer_counter %}
    {% for item in items%}
        <div>{{ outer_counter }}.&nbsp;{{ item }}</div>
    {% endfor %}
  {% endwith %}
{% endfor %}

if using high version of Django you could use

{% with outer_counter=forloop.counter %}

Note: With doesn't allow spaces before or after =

I've checked, Django 1.4.x - Django 1.9.x support the two methods.

this is more clear when have many for loops

Answer 3

In some cases the forloop.parentloop is not enough.

Check out django-templateaddons3 and its {% counter %} tag for a full-fledged solution.