Django shortcut functions

The package django.shortcuts collects helper functions and classes that “span” multiple levels of MVC. In other words, these functions/classes introduce controlled coupling for convenience’s sake.

render_to_response

render_to_response(template[, dictionary][, context_instance][, mimetype])
Renders a given template with a given context dictionary and returns an HttpResponse object with that rendered text.

Required arguments

template
The full name of a template to use or sequence of template names.

Optional arguments

dictionary
A dictionary of values to add to the template context. By default, this is an empty dictionary. If a value in the dictionary is callable, the view will call it just before rendering the template.
context_instance

The context instance to render the template with. By default, the template will be rendered with a Context instance (filled with values from dictionary). If you need to use context processors, render the template with a RequestContext instance instead. Your code might look something like this:

return render_to_response('my_template.html',
                          my_data_dictionary,
                          context_instance=RequestContext(request))

mimetype

New in Django 1.0: Please, see the release notes

The MIME type to use for the resulting document. Defaults to the value of the DEFAULT_CONTENT_TYPE setting.

Example

The following example renders the template myapp/index.html with the MIME type application/xhtml+xml:

from django.shortcuts import render_to_response

def my_view(request):
    # View code here...
    return render_to_response('myapp/index.html', {"foo": "bar"},
        mimetype="application/xhtml+xml")

This example is equivalent to:

from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.template import Context, loader

def my_view(request):
    # View code here...
    t = loader.get_template('myapp/template.html')
    c = Context({'foo': 'bar'})
    return HttpResponse(t.render(c),
        mimetype="application/xhtml+xml")

redirect

redirect(to[, permanent=False], *args, **kwargs)
New in Django 1.1: Please, see the release notes

Returns an HttpResponseRedirect to the apropriate URL for the arguments passed.

The arguments could be:

  • A model: the model's get_absolute_url() function will be called.
  • A view name, possibly with arguments: urlresolvers.reverse() will be used to reverse-resolve the name.
  • A URL, which will be used as-is for the redirect location.

By default issues a temporary redirect; pass permanent=True to issue a permanent redirect

Examples

You can use the redirect() function in a number of ways.

  1. By passing some object; that object's get_absolute_url() method will be called to figure out the redirect URL:

    def my_view(request):
    ...
    object = MyModel.objects.get(...)
    return redirect(object)

  2. By passing the name of a view and optionally some positional or keyword arguments; the URL will be reverse resolved using the reverse() method:

    def my_view(request):
    ...
    return redirect('some-view-name', foo='bar')

  3. By passing a hardcoded URL to redirect to:

    def my_view(request):
    ...
    return redirect('/some/url/')

    This also works with full URLs:

    def my_view(request):
    ...
    return redirect('http://example.com/')

By default, redirect() returns a temporary redirect. All of the above forms accept a permanent argument; if set to True a permanent redirect will be returned:

def my_view(request):
    ...
    object = MyModel.objects.get(...)
    return redirect(object, permanent=True)

get_object_or_404

get_object_or_404(klass, *args, **kwargs)
Calls get() on a given model manager, but it raises django.http.Http404 instead of the model's DoesNotExist exception.

Required arguments

klass
A Model, Manager or QuerySet instance from which to get the object.
**kwargs
Lookup parameters, which should be in the format accepted by get() and filter().

Example

The following example gets the object with the primary key of 1 from MyModel:

from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404

def my_view(request):
    my_object = get_object_or_404(MyModel, pk=1)

This example is equivalent to:

from django.http import Http404

def my_view(request):
    try:
        my_object = MyModel.objects.get(pk=1)
    except MyModel.DoesNotExist:
        raise Http404

Note: As with get(), an MultipleObjectsReturned exception will be raised if more than one object is found.

get_list_or_404

get_list_or_404(klass, *args, **kwargs)
Returns the result of filter() on a given model manager, raising django.http.Http404 if the resulting list is empty.

Required arguments

klass
A Model, Manager or QuerySet instance from which to get the object.
**kwargs
Lookup parameters, which should be in the format accepted by get() and filter().

Example

The following example gets all published objects from MyModel:

from django.shortcuts import get_list_or_404

def my_view(request):
    my_objects = get_list_or_404(MyModel, published=True)

This example is equivalent to:

from django.http import Http404

def my_view(request):
    my_objects = list(MyModel.objects.filter(published=True))
    if not my_objects:
        raise Http404
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