# Settings > Namespaces are one honking great idea - let's do more of those! > > — [The Zen of Python][cite] Configuration for REST framework is all namespaced inside a single Django setting, named `REST_FRAMEWORK`. For example your project's `settings.py` file might include something like this: REST_FRAMEWORK = { 'DEFAULT_RENDERER_CLASSES': ( 'rest_framework.renderers.YAMLRenderer', ), 'DEFAULT_PARSER_CLASSES': ( 'rest_framework.parsers.YAMLParser', ) } ## Accessing settings If you need to access the values of REST framework's API settings in your project, you should use the `api_settings` object. For example. from rest_framework.settings import api_settings print api_settings.DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES The `api_settings` object will check for any user-defined settings, and otherwise fallback to the default values. Any setting that uses string import paths to refer to a class will automatically import and return the referenced class, instead of the string literal. --- # API Reference ## API policy settings *The following settings control the basic API policies, and are applied to every `APIView` class based view, or `@api_view` function based view.* #### DEFAULT_RENDERER_CLASSES A list or tuple of renderer classes, that determines the default set of renderers that may be used when returning a `Response` object. Default: ( 'rest_framework.renderers.JSONRenderer', 'rest_framework.renderers.BrowsableAPIRenderer', ) #### DEFAULT_PARSER_CLASSES A list or tuple of parser classes, that determines the default set of parsers used when accessing the `request.DATA` property. Default: ( 'rest_framework.parsers.JSONParser', 'rest_framework.parsers.FormParser', 'rest_framework.parsers.MultiPartParser' ) #### DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES A list or tuple of authentication classes, that determines the default set of authenticators used when accessing the `request.user` or `request.auth` properties. Default: ( 'rest_framework.authentication.SessionAuthentication', 'rest_framework.authentication.BasicAuthentication' ) #### DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES A list or tuple of permission classes, that determines the default set of permissions checked at the start of a view. Default: ( 'rest_framework.permissions.AllowAny', ) #### DEFAULT_THROTTLE_CLASSES A list or tuple of throttle classes, that determines the default set of throttles checked at the start of a view. Default: `()` #### DEFAULT_CONTENT_NEGOTIATION_CLASS A content negotiation class, that determines how a renderer is selected for the response, given an incoming request. Default: `'rest_framework.negotiation.DefaultContentNegotiation'` --- ## Generic view settings *The following settings control the behavior of the generic class based views.* #### DEFAULT_MODEL_SERIALIZER_CLASS A class that determines the default type of model serializer that should be used by a generic view if `model` is specified, but `serializer_class` is not provided. Default: `'rest_framework.serializers.ModelSerializer'` #### DEFAULT_PAGINATION_SERIALIZER_CLASS A class the determines the default serialization style for paginated responses. Default: `rest_framework.pagination.PaginationSerializer` #### DEFAULT_FILTER_BACKENDS A list of filter backend classes that should be used for generic filtering. If set to `None` then generic filtering is disabled. #### PAGINATE_BY The default page size to use for pagination. If set to `None`, pagination is disabled by default. Default: `None` #### PAGINATE_BY_PARAM The name of a query parameter, which can be used by the client to override the default page size to use for pagination. If set to `None`, clients may not override the default page size. Default: `None` --- ## Authentication settings *The following settings control the behavior of unauthenticated requests.* #### UNAUTHENTICATED_USER The class that should be used to initialize `request.user` for unauthenticated requests. Default: `django.contrib.auth.models.AnonymousUser` #### UNAUTHENTICATED_TOKEN The class that should be used to initialize `request.auth` for unauthenticated requests. Default: `None` --- ## Browser overrides *The following settings provide URL or form-based overrides of the default browser behavior.* #### FORM_METHOD_OVERRIDE The name of a form field that may be used to override the HTTP method of the form. If the value of this setting is `None` then form method overloading will be disabled. Default: `'_method'` #### FORM_CONTENT_OVERRIDE The name of a form field that may be used to override the content of the form payload. Must be used together with `FORM_CONTENTTYPE_OVERRIDE`. If either setting is `None` then form content overloading will be disabled. Default: `'_content'` #### FORM_CONTENTTYPE_OVERRIDE The name of a form field that may be used to override the content type of the form payload. Must be used together with `FORM_CONTENT_OVERRIDE`. If either setting is `None` then form content overloading will be disabled. Default: `'_content_type'` #### URL_ACCEPT_OVERRIDE The name of a URL parameter that may be used to override the HTTP `Accept` header. If the value of this setting is `None` then URL accept overloading will be disabled. Default: `'accept'` #### URL_FORMAT_OVERRIDE The name of a URL parameter that may be used to override the default `Accept` header based content negotiation. Default: `'format'` --- ## Date and time formatting *The following settings are used to control how date and time representations may be parsed and rendered.* #### DATETIME_FORMAT A format string that should be used by default for rendering the output of `DateTimeField` serializer fields. If `None`, then `DateTimeField` serializer fields will return python `datetime` objects, and the datetime encoding will be determined by the renderer. May be any of `None`, `'iso-8601'` or a python [strftime format][strftime] string. Default: `None` #### DATETIME_INPUT_FORMATS A list of format strings that should be used by default for parsing inputs to `DateTimeField` serializer fields. May be a list including the string `'iso-8601'` or python [strftime format][strftime] strings. Default: `['iso-8601']` #### DATE_FORMAT A format string that should be used by default for rendering the output of `DateField` serializer fields. If `None`, then `DateField` serializer fields will return python `date` objects, and the date encoding will be determined by the renderer. May be any of `None`, `'iso-8601'` or a python [strftime format][strftime] string. Default: `None` #### DATE_INPUT_FORMATS A list of format strings that should be used by default for parsing inputs to `DateField` serializer fields. May be a list including the string `'iso-8601'` or python [strftime format][strftime] strings. Default: `['iso-8601']` #### TIME_FORMAT A format string that should be used by default for rendering the output of `TimeField` serializer fields. If `None`, then `TimeField` serializer fields will return python `time` objects, and the time encoding will be determined by the renderer. May be any of `None`, `'iso-8601'` or a python [strftime format][strftime] string. Default: `None` #### TIME_INPUT_FORMATS A list of format strings that should be used by default for parsing inputs to `TimeField` serializer fields. May be a list including the string `'iso-8601'` or python [strftime format][strftime] strings. Default: `['iso-8601']` --- ## Miscellaneous settings #### FORMAT_SUFFIX_KWARG The name of a parameter in the URL conf that may be used to provide a format suffix. Default: `'format'` [cite]: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/ [strftime]: http://docs.python.org/2/library/time.html#time.strftime