Django shortcut functions
This document is for Django's SVN release, which can be significantly different from previous releases. Get old docs here: 0.96, 0.95.
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()
django.shortcuts.render_to_response 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.
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 development version: 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'})
r = HttpResponse(t.render(c),
mimetype="application/xhtml+xml")
get_object_or_404
django.shortcuts.get_object_or_404 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
django.shortcuts.get_list_or_404 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 = MyModel.objects.filter(published=True)
if not my_objects:
raise Http404
Questions/Feedback
If you notice errors with this documentation, please open a ticket and let us know!
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