[Python] Using a model property (list of dictionaries) as an input to django's...

I am attempting to use Django's format_html_join() util to return an html formatted version history for one of my models. But I cannot get format_html_join() to accept my list of dictionaries.

Here is what the documentation suggests:

format_html_join(
"\n",
'<li data-id="{id}">{id} {title}</li>',
({"id": b.id, "title": b.title} for b in books),
)


That third argument is intended to be: args_generator should be an iterator that yields arguments to pass to format_html(), either sequences of positional arguments or mappings of keyword arguments.

I have tried different ways to get this to work and I'm not getting it, so I'm asking for help. I thought a list of dictionaries is iterable. I'm also thinking there has to be a way to use a list of dictionaries in a util that is expecting a list of dictionaries without having to re-create the list of dictionaries. Here is the model method I have to get the version history:

@property # I have tried this as a property and not as a property, neither works
def get_version_history(self):
versions = Version.objects.get_for_object(self)
version_history = []
for version in versions:
history_fields = version.field_dict
hdict = {"question": history_fields['question'],
"answer": history_fields['answer'],
"user": version.revision.user.username,
"timestamp": version.revision.date_created.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"),
}
version_history.append(hdict)
return version_history


That method returns something like this:

[{'question': "I'm out of questions",
'answer': 'bye',
'user': 'test.supervisor',
'timestamp': '2025-07-31 20:19'},
{'question': "I'm out of questions",
'answer': 'me too',
'user': 'test.supervisor',
'timestamp': '2025-07-31 20:18'},
{'question': "I'm out of questions",
'answer': '',
'user': 'test.supervisor',
'timestamp': '2025-07-31 20:18'}]


Now I am trying to return an html formatted version of that list of dictionaries:

def version_html(self):

html = format_html_join(
"\n",
"""<tr>
<td>{question}</td>
<td>{answer}</td>
<td>{user}</td>
<td>{timestamp}</td>
</tr>""",
self.get_version_history
)
return html


The above code returns this error:

File ~/.virtualenvs/cep/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/utils/html.py:112, in format_html(format_string, *args, **kwargs)
110 args_safe = map(conditional_escape, args)
111 kwargs_safe = {k: conditional_escape(v) for (k, v) in kwargs.items()}
--> 112 return mark_safe(format_string.format(*args_safe, **kwargs_safe))

KeyError: 'question'


I have tried various things for the third argument, all with various errors:

self.get_version_history
self.get_version_history()

**self.get_version_history
**self.get_version_history()

{"question": v.question, "answer": v.answer, "user": v.user, "timestamp": v.timestamp,} for v in self.get_version_history())
({"question": v['question'], "answer": v['answer'], "user": v['user'], "timestamp": v['timestamp']} for v in self.get_version_history())

{"question": v.question, "answer": v.answer, "user": v.user, "timestamp": v.timestamp,} for v in self.get_version_history)
({"question": v['question'], "answer": v['answer'], "user": v['user'], "timestamp": v['timestamp']} for v in self.get_version_history)

(d for d in self.get_version_history)
(d for d in self.get_version_history())

[d for d in self.get_version_history]
[d for d in self.get_version_history()]



Now I'm just thrashing.

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