django-rest-framework/docs/tutorial/3-class-based-views.md
2015-01-09 11:36:21 -08:00

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# Tutorial 3: Class Based Views
We can also write our API views using class based views, rather than function based views. As we'll see this is a powerful pattern that allows us to reuse common functionality, and helps us keep our code [DRY][dry].
## Rewriting our API using class based views
We'll start by rewriting the root view as a class based view. All this involves is a little bit of refactoring of `views.py`.
from snippets.models import Snippet
from snippets.serializers import SnippetSerializer
from django.http import Http404
from rest_framework.views import APIView
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework import status
class SnippetList(APIView):
"""
List all snippets, or create a new snippet.
"""
def get(self, request, format=None):
snippets = Snippet.objects.all()
serializer = SnippetSerializer(snippets, many=True)
return Response(serializer.data)
def post(self, request, format=None):
serializer = SnippetSerializer(data=request.data)
if serializer.is_valid():
serializer.save()
return Response(serializer.data, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)
So far, so good. It looks pretty similar to the previous case, but we've got better separation between the different HTTP methods. We'll also need to update the instance view in `views.py`.
class SnippetDetail(APIView):
"""
Retrieve, update or delete a snippet instance.
"""
def get_object(self, pk):
try:
return Snippet.objects.get(pk=pk)
except Snippet.DoesNotExist:
raise Http404
def get(self, request, pk, format=None):
snippet = self.get_object(pk)
serializer = SnippetSerializer(snippet)
return Response(serializer.data)
def put(self, request, pk, format=None):
snippet = self.get_object(pk)
serializer = SnippetSerializer(snippet, data=request.data)
if serializer.is_valid():
serializer.save()
return Response(serializer.data)
return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)
def delete(self, request, pk, format=None):
snippet = self.get_object(pk)
snippet.delete()
return Response(status=status.HTTP_204_NO_CONTENT)
That's looking good. Again, it's still pretty similar to the function based view right now.
We'll also need to refactor our `urls.py` slightly now we're using class based views.
from django.conf.urls import url
from rest_framework.urlpatterns import format_suffix_patterns
from snippets import views
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^snippets/$', views.SnippetList.as_view()),
url(r'^snippets/(?P<pk>[0-9]+)/$', views.SnippetDetail.as_view()),
]
urlpatterns = format_suffix_patterns(urlpatterns)
Okay, we're done. If you run the development server everything should be working just as before.
## Using mixins
One of the big wins of using class based views is that it allows us to easily compose reusable bits of behaviour.
The create/retrieve/update/delete operations that we've been using so far are going to be pretty similar for any model-backed API views we create. Those bits of common behaviour are implemented in REST framework's mixin classes.
Let's take a look at how we can compose the views by using the mixin classes. Here's our `views.py` module again.
from snippets.models import Snippet
from snippets.serializers import SnippetSerializer
from rest_framework import mixins
from rest_framework import generics
class SnippetList(mixins.ListModelMixin,
mixins.CreateModelMixin,
generics.GenericAPIView):
queryset = Snippet.objects.all()
serializer_class = SnippetSerializer
def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
return self.list(request, *args, **kwargs)
def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
return self.create(request, *args, **kwargs)
We'll take a moment to examine exactly what's happening here. We're building our view using `GenericAPIView`, and adding in `ListModelMixin` and `CreateModelMixin`.
The base class provides the core functionality, and the mixin classes provide the `.list()` and `.create()` actions. We're then explicitly binding the `get` and `post` methods to the appropriate actions. Simple enough stuff so far.
class SnippetDetail(mixins.RetrieveModelMixin,
mixins.UpdateModelMixin,
mixins.DestroyModelMixin,
generics.GenericAPIView):
queryset = Snippet.objects.all()
serializer_class = SnippetSerializer
def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
return self.retrieve(request, *args, **kwargs)
def put(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
return self.update(request, *args, **kwargs)
def delete(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
return self.destroy(request, *args, **kwargs)
Pretty similar. Again we're using the `GenericAPIView` class to provide the core functionality, and adding in mixins to provide the `.retrieve()`, `.update()` and `.destroy()` actions.
## Using generic class based views
Using the mixin classes we've rewritten the views to use slightly less code than before, but we can go one step further. REST framework provides a set of already mixed-in generic views that we can use to trim down our `views.py` module even more.
from snippets.models import Snippet
from snippets.serializers import SnippetSerializer
from rest_framework import generics
class SnippetList(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
queryset = Snippet.objects.all()
serializer_class = SnippetSerializer
class SnippetDetail(generics.RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView):
queryset = Snippet.objects.all()
serializer_class = SnippetSerializer
Wow, that's pretty concise. We've gotten a huge amount for free, and our code looks like good, clean, idiomatic Django.
Next we'll move onto [part 4 of the tutorial][tut-4], where we'll take a look at how we can deal with authentication and permissions for our API.
[dry]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_repeat_yourself
[tut-4]: 4-authentication-and-permissions.md