django-cms string replacement on output

Question

For some django-cms site, I want to replace each occurrence of a fixed string (namely two stars in a row: "**") by another fixed string on output. When editing, it must remain the original string. The idea is, to have a very short tag for frequent use.

How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

This can be done with a Middleware:

pattern = "**"
replacement = """<span class="gender" title="some explanation">*</span>"""

class SubstituteMiddleware:
    def __init__(self, get_response):
        self.get_response = get_response

    def __call__(self, request):
        response = self.get_response(request)
        if hasattr(response,"content"):
            response.content = response.content.replace(pattern,replacement)
        return response

• Modify pattern and replacement according to your needs.
• Place this code into <yoursite>/middleware/sub.py (add directory middleware with empty __init__.py if not yet present)
• Add <yoursite>.middleware.sub.SubstituteMiddleware to the MIDDLEWARE-list in settings.py

Note that this approach is deficient in that it replaces not only content, but also accidentally matching parts of the HTML-code.