django-rest-framework/docs/api-guide/generic-views.md

Generic views

Django’s generic views... were developed as a shortcut for common usage patterns... They take certain common idioms and patterns found in view development and abstract them so that you can quickly write common views of data without having to repeat yourself.

— Django Documentation

One of the key benefits of class based views is the way they allow you to compose bits of reusable behaviour. REST framework takes advantage of this by providing a number of pre-built views that provide for commonly used patterns.

The generic views provided by REST framework allow you to quickly build API views that map closely to your database models.

If the generic views don't suit the needs of your API, you can drop down to using the regular APIView class, or reuse the mixins and base classes used by the generic views to compose your own set of reusable generic views.

Examples

Typically when using the generic views, you'll override the view, and set several class attributes.

class UserList(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
    model = User
    serializer_class = UserSerializer
    permission_classes = (IsAdminUser,)
    paginate_by = 100

For more complex cases you might also want to override various methods on the view class. For example.

class UserList(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
    model = User
    serializer_class = UserSerializer
    permission_classes = (IsAdminUser,)
    
    def get_paginate_by(self, queryset):
        """
        Use smaller pagination for HTML representations.
        """
        page_size_param = self.request.QUERY_PARAMS.get('page_size')
        if page_size_param:
            return int(page_size_param)
        return 100

For very simple cases you might want to pass through any class attributes using the .as_view() method. For example, your URLconf might include something the following entry.

url(r'^/users/', ListCreateAPIView.as_view(model=User) name='user-list')

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API Reference

The following classes are the concrete generic views. If you're using generic views this is normally the level you'll be working at unless you need heavily customized behavior.

CreateAPIView

Used for create-only endpoints.

Provides post method handlers.

Extends: GenericAPIView, CreateModelMixin

ListAPIView

Used for read-only endpoints to represent a collection of model instances.

Provides a get method handler.

Extends: MultipleObjectAPIView, ListModelMixin

RetrieveAPIView

Used for read-only endpoints to represent a single model instance.

Provides a get method handler.

Extends: SingleObjectAPIView, RetrieveModelMixin

DestroyAPIView

Used for delete-only endpoints for a single model instance.

Provides a delete method handler.

Extends: SingleObjectAPIView, DestroyModelMixin

UpdateAPIView

Used for update-only endpoints for a single model instance.

Provides a put method handler.

Extends: SingleObjectAPIView, UpdateModelMixin

ListCreateAPIView

Used for read-write endpoints to represent a collection of model instances.

Provides get and post method handlers.

Extends: MultipleObjectAPIView, ListModelMixin, CreateModelMixin

RetrieveDestroyAPIView

Used for read or delete endpoints to represent a single model instance.

Provides get and delete method handlers.

Extends: SingleObjectAPIView, RetrieveModelMixin, DestroyModelMixin

RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView

Used for read-write-delete endpoints to represent a single model instance.

Provides get, put and delete method handlers.

Extends: SingleObjectAPIView, RetrieveModelMixin, UpdateModelMixin, DestroyModelMixin

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Base views

Each of the generic views provided is built by combining one of the base views below, with one or more mixin classes.

GenericAPIView

Extends REST framework's APIView class, adding support for serialization of model instances and model querysets.

Attributes:

• model - The model that should be used for this view. Used as a fallback for determining the serializer if serializer_class is not set, and as a fallback for determining the queryset if queryset is not set. Otherwise not required.
• serializer_class - The serializer class that should be used for validating and deserializing input, and for serializing output. If unset, this defaults to creating a serializer class using self.model, with the DEFAULT_MODEL_SERIALIZER_CLASS setting as the base serializer class.

MultipleObjectAPIView

Provides a base view for acting on a single object, by combining REST framework's APIView, and Django's MultipleObjectMixin.

See also: ccbv.co.uk documentation for MultipleObjectMixin.

Attributes:

• queryset - The queryset that should be used for returning objects from this view. If unset, defaults to the default queryset manager for self.model.
• paginate_by - The size of pages to use with paginated data. If set to None then pagination is turned off. If unset this uses the same value as the PAGINATE_BY setting, which defaults to None.
• paginate_by_param - The name of a query parameter, which can be used by the client to overide the default page size to use for pagination. If unset this uses the same value as the PAGINATE_BY_PARAM setting, which defaults to None.

SingleObjectAPIView

Provides a base view for acting on a single object, by combining REST framework's APIView, and Django's SingleObjectMixin.

See also: ccbv.co.uk documentation for SingleObjectMixin.

Attributes:

• queryset - The queryset that should be used when retrieving an object from this view. If unset, defaults to the default queryset manager for self.model.
• pk_kwarg - The URL kwarg that should be used to look up objects by primary key. Defaults to 'pk'. [Can only be set to non-default on Django 1.4+]
• slug_kwarg - The URL kwarg that should be used to look up objects by a slug. Defaults to 'slug'. [Can only be set to non-default on Django 1.4+]
• slug_field - The field on the model that should be used to look up objects by a slug. If used, this should typically be set to a field with unique=True. Defaults to 'slug'.

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Mixins

The mixin classes provide the actions that are used to provide the basic view behaviour. Note that the mixin classes provide action methods rather than defining the handler methods such as .get() and .post() directly. This allows for more flexible composition of behaviour.

ListModelMixin

Provides a .list(request, *args, **kwargs) method, that implements listing a queryset.

If the queryset is populated, this returns a 200 OK response, with a serialized representation of the queryset as the body of the response. The response data may optionally be paginated.

If the queryset is empty this returns a 200 OK reponse, unless the .allow_empty attribute on the view is set to False, in which case it will return a 404 Not Found.

Should be mixed in with MultipleObjectAPIView.

CreateModelMixin

Provides a .create(request, *args, **kwargs) method, that implements creating and saving a new model instance.

If an object is created this returns a 201 Created response, with a serialized representation of the object as the body of the response. If the representation contains a key named url, then the Location header of the response will be populated with that value.

If the request data provided for creating the object was invalid, a 400 Bad Request response will be returned, with the error details as the body of the response.

Should be mixed in with any GenericAPIView.

RetrieveModelMixin

Provides a .retrieve(request, *args, **kwargs) method, that implements returning an existing model instance in a response.

If an object can be retrieve this returns a 200 OK response, with a serialized representation of the object as the body of the response. Otherwise it will return a 404 Not Found.

Should be mixed in with SingleObjectAPIView.

UpdateModelMixin

Provides a .update(request, *args, **kwargs) method, that implements updating and saving an existing model instance.

If an object is updated this returns a 200 OK response, with a serialized representation of the object as the body of the response.

If an object is created, for example when making a DELETE request followed by a PUT request to the same URL, this returns a 201 Created response, with a serialized representation of the object as the body of the response.

If the request data provided for updating the object was invalid, a 400 Bad Request response will be returned, with the error details as the body of the response.

Should be mixed in with SingleObjectAPIView.

DestroyModelMixin

Provides a .destroy(request, *args, **kwargs) method, that implements deletion of an existing model instance.

If an object is deleted this returns a 204 No Content response, otherwise it will return a 404 Not Found.

Should be mixed in with SingleObjectAPIView.