> Resource routing allows you to quickly declare all of the common routes for a given resourceful controller. Instead of declaring separate routes for your index... a resourceful route declares them in a single line of code.
Some Web frameworks such as Rails provide functionality for automatically determining how the URLs for an application should be mapped to the logic that deals with handling incoming requests.
REST framework adds support for automatic URL routing to Django, and provides you with a simple, quick and consistent way of wiring your view logic to a set of URLs.
*`base_name` - The base to use for the URL names that are created. If unset the basename will be automatically generated based on the `queryset` attribute of the viewset, if it has one. Note that if the viewset does not include a `queryset` attribute then you must set `base_name` when registering the viewset.
**Note**: The `base_name` argument is used to specify the initial part of the view name pattern. In the example above, that's the `user` or `account` part.
Typically you won't *need* to specify the `base_name` argument, but if you have a viewset where you've defined a custom `get_queryset` method, then the viewset may not have a `.queryset` attribute set. If you try to register that viewset you'll see an error like this:
This means you'll need to explicitly set the `base_name` argument when registering the viewset, as it could not be automatically determined from the model name.
The `.urls` attribute on a router instance is simply a standard list of URL patterns. There are a number of different styles for how you can include these URLs.
For example, you can append `router.urls` to a list of existing views…
A viewset may [mark extra actions for routing][route-decorators] by decorating a method with the `@action` decorator. These extra actions will be included in the generated routes. For example, given the `set_password` method on the `UserViewSet` class:
By default, the URL pattern is based on the method name, and the URL name is the combination of the `ViewSet.basename` and the hyphenated method name.
If you don't want to use the defaults for either of these values, you can instead provide the `url_path` and `url_name` arguments to the `@action` decorator.
This router includes routes for the standard set of `list`, `create`, `retrieve`, `update`, `partial_update` and `destroy` actions. The viewset can also mark additional methods to be routed, using the `@action` decorator.
<tr><td>{prefix}/{url_path}/</td><td>GET, or as specified by `methods` argument</td><td>`@action(detail=False)` decorated method</td><td>{basename}-{url_name}</td></tr>
<tr><td>{prefix}/{lookup}/{url_path}/</td><td>GET, or as specified by `methods` argument</td><td>`@action(detail=True)` decorated method</td><td>{basename}-{url_name}</td></tr>
This behavior can be modified by setting the `trailing_slash` argument to `False` when instantiating the router. For example:
router = SimpleRouter(trailing_slash=False)
Trailing slashes are conventional in Django, but are not used by default in some other frameworks such as Rails. Which style you choose to use is largely a matter of preference, although some javascript frameworks may expect a particular routing style.
The router will match lookup values containing any characters except slashes and period characters. For a more restrictive (or lenient) lookup pattern, set the `lookup_value_regex` attribute on the viewset. For example, you can limit the lookup to valid UUIDs:
This router is similar to `SimpleRouter` as above, but additionally includes a default API root view, that returns a response containing hyperlinks to all the list views. It also generates routes for optional `.json` style format suffixes.
<tr><td>{prefix}/{url_path}/[.format]</td><td>GET, or as specified by `methods` argument</td><td>`@action(detail=False)` decorated method</td><td>{basename}-{url_name}</td></tr>
<tr><td>{prefix}/{lookup}/{url_path}/[.format]</td><td>GET, or as specified by `methods` argument</td><td>`@action(detail=True)` decorated method</td><td>{basename}-{url_name}</td></tr>
As with `SimpleRouter` the trailing slashes on the URL routes can be removed by setting the `trailing_slash` argument to `False` when instantiating the router.
Implementing a custom router isn't something you'd need to do very often, but it can be useful if you have specific requirements about how the URLs for your API are structured. Doing so allows you to encapsulate the URL structure in a reusable way that ensures you don't have to write your URL patterns explicitly for each new view.
The simplest way to implement a custom router is to subclass one of the existing router classes. The `.routes` attribute is used to template the URL patterns that will be mapped to each viewset. The `.routes` attribute is a list of `Route` named tuples.
**initkwargs**: A dictionary of any additional arguments that should be passed when instantiating the view. Note that the `detail`, `basename`, and `suffix` arguments are reserved for viewset introspection and are also used by the browsable API to generate the view name and breadcrumb links.
You can also customize how the `@action` decorator is routed. Include the `DynamicRoute` named tuple in the `.routes` list, setting the `detail` argument as appropriate for the list-based and detail-based routes. In addition to `detail`, the arguments to `DynamicRoute` are:
**url**: A string representing the URL to be routed. May include the same format strings as `Route`, and additionally accepts the `{url_path}` format string.
If you want to provide totally custom behavior, you can override `BaseRouter` and override the `get_urls(self)` method. The method should inspect the registered viewsets and return a list of URL patterns. The registered prefix, viewset and basename tuples may be inspected by accessing the `self.registry` attribute.
You may also want to override the `get_default_base_name(self, viewset)` method, or else always explicitly set the `base_name` argument when registering your viewsets with the router.
The [wq.db package][wq.db] provides an advanced [ModelRouter][wq.db-router] class (and singleton instance) that extends `DefaultRouter` with a `register_model()` API. Much like Django's `admin.site.register`, the only required argument to `rest.router.register_model` is a model class. Reasonable defaults for a url prefix, serializer, and viewset will be inferred from the model and global configuration.
