Get a string variable from views to urls in Django - python-3.x

Question

I am a beginner at Python and Django, I am trying to solve a problem where when a user searches if that search is valid, I want to get that search = var_X, in my URL like:
www.website.com/search/var_X
or something like,
www.website.com/search/<df.item>
Views.py
def views_search(request):
temp_dict = {}
if request.method == 'POST':
var_X = request.POST['var_X']
try:
df = wsc.Summary(temp_dict, var_X)
except Exception as e:
df = "ERROR"
return render(request,'search.html', {'df' : df})
else:
return render(request,'home.html', {'var_X' : "Not Found"})
Urls
from django.urls import path
from . import views
from requests import *
urlpatterns = [
path('search/<var_X>', views.views_search, name="url-search"),
]
HTML
<form action="{% url 'url-search' var_X %}"class="d-flex" method="POST">
{% csrf_token %}
<input class="form-control me-2" type="search" placeholder="Enter String" aria-label="Search" name="var_X">
<button class="btn btn-outline-secondary" type="submit">Search</button>
</form>

Answer 1

When Django renders a template it converts all template tags into html.
You won't be able to set the value of var_X in {% url 'url-search' var_X %} using python code on the client side.
My suggestion is to use javascript to set the form's action using the onclick html attribute.
<button ... onclick="this.form.action = {% url 'url-search' %} + document.getElementById('id-of-input-element').value;>"
This also means removing the action attribute from the input element.
From
<form action="{% url 'url-search' var_X %}"class="d-flex" method="POST">
to
<form class="d-flex" method="POST">
Because I don't know what your code does (because I don't know what df is. Use the following as only an example of what you could achieve.
(In my code snippets entering a search goes back to the same page to display results.)
urls.py
urlpatterns = [
path('search/', views.views_search, name="url-search"),
path('search/<str:var_X>', views.views_search)
]
The route 'search/' is needed in order to make {% url 'url-search' %} work on first page load.
The route 'search/<str:var_X>' matches any value after search/ into a variable called var_X as a string in the view function.
views.py
def views_search(request, var_X=None):
if request.method == 'POST':
pass
# do the stuff you need to do with the form..
return render(
request,
"views_search.html",
{
'var_X': var_X
}
)
The parameter var_X is None by default if the url doesn't have anything after search/ else it will have the search string.
views_search.html (wtv your html template is called)
<form class="d-flex" method="POST">
{% csrf_token %}
<input id="search_input" class="form-control me-2" type="search" placeholder="Enter String" aria-label="Search" name="var_X" value="">
<button class="btn btn-outline-secondary" type="submit" onclick="this.form.action = {% url 'url-search' %} + document.getElementById('search_input').value;">Search</button>
</form>
{% if var_X %}
<p>Showing results for '{{ var_X }}'.</p>
{% endif %}
with the above html you'll get this output:
Before pressing search button
After pressing search button
This also has the benefit that if you type something directly into the url it will search that too.
Hopefully this helps steer you in the right direction for what you're looking for.