Importerror: cannot import name ‘escape’ from ‘jinja2’

Being a developer, you may have come across Importerror: cannot import name ‘escape’ from ‘jinja2’ error at some point.

This trouble encounters when importing the escape function from the Jinja2 module in your Python project.

In this article, we will explain the causes of the error, and provide solutions to help you resolve the issue.

What is Importerror: cannot import name ‘escape’ from ‘jinja2’?

The ImportError: cannot import name ‘escape’ from jinja2 occurs when you try to import the escape function from the jinja2 module. It is because the escape function was removed from the Jinja2 module in version 3.1.0.

Additionally, the escape’ function is a utility function in the Jinja2 templating engine that helps to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks by escaping special characters in user-generated content.

Let’s say you import the following statement in your code:

from jinja2 import escape

template = '<h1>{{ data }}</h1>'
content = {'data': 'Welcome'}
result = render_template_string(template, content)

print(result)

When we run the code along with the latest Jinja2 module, Python will give the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File …
from jinja2 import escape
ImportError: cannot import name 'escape' from 'jinja2'

So why does this error occur asides from the mentioned above?

Why did this error occur?

Certainly, the possible reasons why we get this error include the following:

• Incorrect installation of the Jinja2 package.
• Conflicting versions of the Jinja2 package.
• The ‘escape’ function may have been removed or renamed in a newer version of Jinja2.

This time we will fix this error with the solution provided in the next section…

Solution Importerror: cannot import name ‘escape’ from ‘jinja2’

1. Correct the import statement

In order to fix the error, we need to refactor your import statement as follows:

from markupsafe import escape

Since the MarkUpSafe module is already present as a dependency of the Jinja2 module, therefore to install the module separately we don’t need to use pip.

2. Downgrade your Jinja2 version

Alternatively, we can still use jinja2 but we need to downgrade the Jinja2 module to its latest version wherein it still supports the function.

So the latest version that still includes the escape function is jinja2 version 3.0.3. Anyway, we need to use pip to downgrade this module.

The command is as follows:

pip install jinja2==3.0.3 --force-reinstall

📌 For pip3 here’s the command:

pip3 install jinja2==3.0.3 --force-reinstall

3. Upgrade to Flask version 2

When you get this error while you are using the Flask framework, then this error happens because Flask version 1 used the escape function from Jinja2 in its code.

The thing we need to do is to upgrade the Flask module to the latest version using pip.

Use one of the commands below in your terminal:

pip install flask --upgrade

📌 For pip3 here is the command:

pip3 install flask --upgrade

Definitely, the latest Flask version should fix this issue, so you have no problem running your application

In addition to this if you have requirements.txt file, just instruct pip to install an explicit version of Jinja2 as follows:

jinja2==3.0.3

Alternatively, this is a good solution so you don’t have to install Jinja2 version immediately.

I think that’s all for the solution…

Anyway here are some other fixed errors wherein you can refer to try when you might face these errors:

• Importerror: cannot import name ‘baseresponse’ from ‘werkzeug.wrappers’
• Importerror: cannot import name ‘soft_unicode’ from ‘markupsafe

Conclusion

In conclusion, Importerror: cannot import name ‘escape’ from ‘jinja2’ can be fixed by refactoring the import statement and downgrading the Jinja2 version.

Additionally, those who are using the Flask, it need also need to upgrade the Flask module in order to utilize the latest Jinja2 version.

I think that’s all for this article. I hope it helped you fix the error.

Until next time! 😊