Back
Feb 28, 2010

Composing multiple views in Django

In UNIX way, each view should solve single task. This is good idea, but sometimes we need to mix logic of different views on same page. Filter, sort, paginate, or, for example, add comment on product page. In this article I'll show how we can mix such multiple views.

Idea

We can write views as decorators.

Example

Simplified filtration can look like this:

from django.views.generic.list_detail import object_list


def filtered_list(request, filterset_class, queryset, *args, **kwargs):
    filterset = filterset_class(request.GET)
    queryset = filterset.filter(queryset)
    kwargs['extra_context']['filterset'] = filterset

    return object_list(request, queryset, *args, **kwargs)

This is simple and straightforward, but in order to add some tricky pagination, we have to copy entire view and add more code to it.

Instead, we can create decorator like this:

def filtered(view):
    def wrapped(request, filterset_class, queryset, *args, **kwargs):
        filterset = filterset_class(request.GET)
        queryset = filterset.filter(queryset)
        kwargs['extra_context']['filterset'] = filterset
        return view(request, queryset, *args, **kwargs)

    return wrapped

Result

Assuming, that we have similar decorators, sorted и paginated, we can easily combine them:

@filtered
@paginated
def technic_list(*args, **kwargs):
    # ...

Or even like this, in lisp style:

url(r'^technic/$', filtered(sorted(paginated(object_list))), {
    'filterset_class': FilterSet,
     # ...
}, name='technic_list'),

Subscribe for the news and updates

More thoughts
Feb 3, 2025Technology
Figma for Developers: What Dev Mode Offers and How to Use It

This article explores Figma’s Dev Mode, a tool that streamlines design-to-code translation by enabling precise inspection, automated code generation, and seamless integration with design systems.

Jun 1, 2018Technology
Site search organization: basic concepts

Now it's time to get acquainted with Elasticsearch. This NoSQL database is used to store logs, analyze information and - most importantly - search.

Jun 14, 2017Technology
How to Deploy a Django Application on Heroku?

In this article I'll show you how to deploy Django with Celery and Postgres to Heroku.

May 26, 2017Technology
Tutorial: Django User Registration and Authentication

In this beginners friends article I'll explain how to make authentication with Google account on your Django site and how to make authentication for you REST API.

Oct 11, 2010Technology
Char search in Emacs as in Vim

In VIM there is a command for char search: f. After first use it can be repeated with ;. I like to navigate in line with it. You see that you need to go to bracket in a middle of a line - you press f( and one-two ; and you are there. There's no such command in Emacs, so I had to write my own. I've managed even to implement repetition with ;.

Feb 18, 2010Technology
User profiles with inheritance in Django

Usually users' profiles are stored in single model. When there are multiple user types, separation is made by some field like user_type.Situation is a little more complicated when different data is needed for each user type.In this article I'll describe how I solve this task.