How to print spaces from inside a variable in jinja2

Question

I am trying to print a variable number of spaces stored in a variable in jinja2, but jinja is escaping the contents of the variable. So when I store &nbsp in the variable it gets expanded to &nbsp thus printing the characters &nbsp on the page instead of the spaces.

Here is my code:

{% macro show_message(parent_id,count) %}
    {% set clist = get_message(post.id,parent_id) %}
    {% set countr = count + 1 %}
    {% set prefix = '-'*countr %}
    {% set prefix2 = "&nbsp"*countr %}
    {% if clist is defined %}
        {% for c in clist %}
            {{ prefix2 }} Author: {{ get_author(c.user_id) }} <br/>
            {{ prefix }}
            {{ c.message }}
            <br/><br/>
            {{ show_message(c.id,countr) }}
        {% endfor %}
    {% endif %}
{% endmacro %}

Does anyone have a clue how to make this work?

Thanks :)

Answer 1

Mark it as safe with the |safe filter to prevent auto-escaping:

{{ prefix2|safe }}

You also need to include the semicolon at the end of each entity:

{% set prefix2 = " "*countr %}
                       ^

Answer 2

I tried Blender's way with

{{ " "|safe*10 }}

it'll generate 10 spaces