What does '_' do in Django code?

Question

Why does this Django code use _ in front of 'has favicon'

has_favicon = models.BooleanField(_('has favicon'))

score 36 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 26 '09 at 00:07

36

If you look in the import statements, you'll find that they tied _ to a function that turns stuff into unicode and localizes it by writing:

from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

answered Dec 26 '09 at 00:07

SapphireSun

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For those seeing this answer, Django has deprecated `ugettext_lazy` in favor of `gettext_lazy`. – varagrawal Jun 26 '23 at 20:57

score 11 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 04 '19 at 06:39

11

_ in Django is a convention that is used for localizing texts. It is an alias for ugettext_lazy. Read Lazy translation in the docs for more info about it.

edited Apr 04 '19 at 06:39

Wai Ha Lee

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answered Dec 27 '09 at 12:35

Joshua Partogi

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just somebody · Answer 3 · 2009-12-26T00:17:34.123

9

_ is usually a macro/function from gettext, it means the argument is a localized string. this is not limited to Django or Python. in fact gettext is originally a package for C programs, ported to many other languages over the years.

edited Dec 26 '09 at 00:17

answered Dec 26 '09 at 00:08

just somebody

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added part about gettext heritage. you can copy it as well. ;) – just somebody Dec 26 '09 at 00:18
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It also marks it as needing translation so automated tools can create a *.po file for translators to use. – Matthew Talbert Dec 26 '09 at 13:50

What does '_' do in Django code?

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