Django documentation

This document describes Django 1.1. For development docs, go here.

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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