# Django 5.2 documentation

# Base views

The following three classes provide much of the functionality needed to create Django views. You may think of them as parent views, which can be used by themselves or inherited from. They may not provide all the capabilities required for projects, in which case there are Mixins and Generic class-based views.

Many of Django’s built-in class-based views inherit from other class-based views or various mixins. Because this inheritance chain is very important, the ancestor classes are documented under the section title of Ancestors (MRO). MRO is an acronym for Method Resolution Order.

## `View`

class django.views.generic.base.View

  The base view class. All other class-based views inherit from this base class. It isn’t strictly a generic view and thus can also be imported from `django.views`.

  Method Flowchart

  1. `setup()`

  2. `dispatch()`

  3. `http_method_not_allowed()`

  4. `options()`

  Example views.py:

      from django.http import HttpResponse
      from django.views import View

      class MyView(View):
          def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
              return HttpResponse("Hello, World!")

  Example urls.py:

      from django.urls import path

      from myapp.views import MyView

      urlpatterns = [
          path("mine/", MyView.as_view(), name="my-view"),
      ]

  Attributes

  http_method_names

    The list of HTTP method names that this view will accept.

    Default:

        ["get", "post", "put", "patch", "delete", "head", "options", "trace"]

  Methods

  classmethod as_view(**initkwargs)

    Returns a callable view that takes a request and returns a response:

        response = MyView.as_view()(request)

    The returned view has `view_class` and `view_initkwargs` attributes.

    When the view is called during the request/response cycle, the `setup()` method assigns the `HttpRequest` to the view’s `request` attribute, and any positional and/or keyword arguments captured from the URL pattern to the `args` and `kwargs` attributes, respectively. Then `dispatch()` is called.

    If a `View` subclass defines asynchronous (`async def`) method handlers, `as_view()` will mark the returned callable as a coroutine function. An `ImproperlyConfigured` exception will be raised if both asynchronous (`async def`) and synchronous (`def`) handlers are defined on a single view-class.

    Changed in Django 4.1:

    Compatibility with asynchronous (`async def`) method handlers was added.

  setup(request, *args, **kwargs)

    Performs key view initialization prior to `dispatch()`.

    If overriding this method, you must call `super()`.

  dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)

    The `view` part of the view – the method that accepts a `request` argument plus arguments, and returns an HTTP response.

    The default implementation will inspect the HTTP method and attempt to delegate to a method that matches the HTTP method; a `GET` will be delegated to `get()`, a `POST` to `post()`, and so on.

    By default, a `HEAD` request will be delegated to `get()`. If you need to handle `HEAD` requests in a different way than `GET`, you can override the `head()` method. See Supporting other HTTP methods for an example.

  http_method_not_allowed(request, *args, **kwargs)

    If the view was called with an HTTP method it doesn’t support, this method is called instead.

    The default implementation returns `HttpResponseNotAllowed` with a list of allowed methods in plain text.

  options(request, *args, **kwargs)

    Handles responding to requests for the OPTIONS HTTP verb. Returns a response with the `Allow` header containing a list of the view’s allowed HTTP method names.

    If the other HTTP methods handlers on the class are asynchronous (`async def`) then the response will be wrapped in a coroutine function for use with `await`.

    Changed in Django 4.1:

    Compatibility with classes defining asynchronous (`async def`) method handlers was added.

## `TemplateView`

class django.views.generic.base.TemplateView

  Renders a given template, with the context containing parameters captured in the URL.

  Ancestors (MRO)

  This view inherits methods and attributes from the following views:

  - `django.views.generic.base.TemplateResponseMixin`

  - `django.views.generic.base.ContextMixin`

  - `django.views.generic.base.View`

  Method Flowchart

  1. `setup()`

  2. `dispatch()`

  3. `http_method_not_allowed()`

  4. `get_context_data()`

  Example views.py:

      from django.views.generic.base import TemplateView

      from articles.models import Article

      class HomePageView(TemplateView):
          template_name = "home.html"

          def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
              context = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)
              context["latest_articles"] = Article.objects.all()[:5]
              return context

  Example urls.py:

      from django.urls import path

      from myapp.views import HomePageView

      urlpatterns = [
          path("", HomePageView.as_view(), name="home"),
      ]

  Context

  - Populated (through `ContextMixin`) with the keyword arguments captured from the URL pattern that served the view.

  - You can also add context using the `extra_context` keyword argument for `as_view()`.

## `RedirectView`

class django.views.generic.base.RedirectView

  Redirects to a given URL.

  The given URL may contain dictionary-style string formatting, which will be interpolated against the parameters captured in the URL. Because keyword interpolation is always done (even if no arguments are passed in), any `"%"` characters in the URL must be written as `"%%"` so that Python will convert them to a single percent sign on output.

  If the given URL is `None`, Django will return an `HttpResponseGone` (410).

  Ancestors (MRO)

  This view inherits methods and attributes from the following view:

  - `django.views.generic.base.View`

  Method Flowchart

  1. `setup()`

  2. `dispatch()`

  3. `http_method_not_allowed()`

  4. `get_redirect_url()`

  Example views.py:

      from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404
      from django.views.generic.base import RedirectView

      from articles.models import Article

      class ArticleCounterRedirectView(RedirectView):
          permanent = False
          query_string = True
          pattern_name = "article-detail"

          def get_redirect_url(self, *args, **kwargs):
              article = get_object_or_404(Article, pk=kwargs["pk"])
              article.update_counter()
              return super().get_redirect_url(*args, **kwargs)

  Example urls.py:

      from django.urls import path
      from django.views.generic.base import RedirectView

      from article.views import ArticleCounterRedirectView, ArticleDetailView

      urlpatterns = [
          path(
              "counter/<int:pk>/",
              ArticleCounterRedirectView.as_view(),
              name="article-counter",
          ),
          path("details/<int:pk>/", ArticleDetailView.as_view(), name="article-detail"),
          path(
              "go-to-django/",
              RedirectView.as_view(url="https://www.djangoproject.com/"),
              name="go-to-django",
          ),
      ]

  Attributes

  url

    The URL to redirect to, as a string. Or `None` to raise a 410 (Gone) HTTP error.

  pattern_name

    The name of the URL pattern to redirect to. Reversing will be done using the same args and kwargs as are passed in for this view.

  permanent

    Whether the redirect should be permanent. The only difference here is the HTTP status code returned. If `True`, then the redirect will use status code 301. If `False`, then the redirect will use status code 302. By default, `permanent` is `False`.

  query_string

    Whether to pass along the GET query string to the new location. If `True`, then the query string is appended to the URL. If `False`, then the query string is discarded. By default, `query_string` is `False`.

  Methods

  get_redirect_url(*args, **kwargs)

    Constructs the target URL for redirection.

    The `args` and `kwargs` arguments are positional and/or keyword arguments captured from the URL pattern, respectively.

    The default implementation uses `url` as a starting string and performs expansion of `%` named parameters in that string using the named groups captured in the URL.

    If `url` is not set, `get_redirect_url()` tries to reverse the `pattern_name` using what was captured in the URL (both named and unnamed groups are used).

    If requested by `query_string`, it will also append the query string to the generated URL. Subclasses may implement any behavior they wish, as long as the method returns a redirect-ready URL string.