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                  <li class="main">
                    <a href="#class-based-views">Class Based Views</a>
                  </li>

                  
                    <li>
                      <a href="#api-policy-attributes">API policy attributes</a>
                    </li>
                  
                    <li>
                      <a href="#api-policy-instantiation-methods">API policy instantiation methods</a>
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                      <a href="#api-policy-implementation-methods">API policy implementation methods</a>
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                      <a href="#dispatch-methods">Dispatch methods</a>
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                    <a href="#function-based-views">Function Based Views</a>
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                      <a href="#api_view">@api_view()</a>
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                      <a href="#api-policy-decorators">API policy decorators</a>
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                  <span class="label label-info">decorators.py</span>
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                <a class="github" href="https://github.com/tomchristie/django-rest-framework/tree/master/rest_framework/views.py">
                  <span class="label label-info">views.py</span>
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            <h1 id="class-based-views">Class Based Views</h1>
<blockquote>
<p>Django's class based views are a welcome departure from the old-style views.</p>
<p>&mdash; <a href="http://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/2011/08/24/class-based-views-usage.html">Reinout van Rees</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>REST framework provides an <code>APIView</code> class, which subclasses Django's <code>View</code> class.</p>
<p><code>APIView</code> classes are different from regular <code>View</code> classes in the following ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Requests passed to the handler methods will be REST framework's <code>Request</code> instances, not Django's <code>HttpRequest</code> instances.</li>
<li>Handler methods may return REST framework's <code>Response</code>, instead of Django's <code>HttpResponse</code>.  The view will manage content negotiation and setting the correct renderer on the response.</li>
<li>Any <code>APIException</code> exceptions will be caught and mediated into appropriate responses.</li>
<li>Incoming requests will be authenticated and appropriate permission and/or throttle checks will be run before dispatching the request to the handler method.</li>
</ul>
<p>Using the <code>APIView</code> class is pretty much the same as using a regular <code>View</code> class, as usual, the incoming request is dispatched to an appropriate handler method such as <code>.get()</code> or <code>.post()</code>.  Additionally, a number of attributes may be set on the class that control various aspects of the API policy.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<pre><code>from rest_framework.views import APIView
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework import authentication, permissions

class ListUsers(APIView):
    """
    View to list all users in the system.

    * Requires token authentication.
    * Only admin users are able to access this view.
    """
    authentication_classes = (authentication.TokenAuthentication,)
    permission_classes = (permissions.IsAdminUser,)

    def get(self, request, format=None):
        """
        Return a list of all users.
        """
        usernames = [user.username for user in User.objects.all()]
        return Response(usernames)
</code></pre>
<h2 id="api-policy-attributes">API policy attributes</h2>
<p>The following attributes control the pluggable aspects of API views.</p>
<h3 id="renderer_classes">.renderer_classes</h3>
<h3 id="parser_classes">.parser_classes</h3>
<h3 id="authentication_classes">.authentication_classes</h3>
<h3 id="throttle_classes">.throttle_classes</h3>
<h3 id="permission_classes">.permission_classes</h3>
<h3 id="content_negotiation_class">.content_negotiation_class</h3>
<h2 id="api-policy-instantiation-methods">API policy instantiation methods</h2>
<p>The following methods are used by REST framework to instantiate the various pluggable API policies.  You won't typically need to override these methods.</p>
<h3 id="get_renderersself">.get_renderers(self)</h3>
<h3 id="get_parsersself">.get_parsers(self)</h3>
<h3 id="get_authenticatorsself">.get_authenticators(self)</h3>
<h3 id="get_throttlesself">.get_throttles(self)</h3>
<h3 id="get_permissionsself">.get_permissions(self)</h3>
<h3 id="get_content_negotiatorself">.get_content_negotiator(self)</h3>
<h2 id="api-policy-implementation-methods">API policy implementation methods</h2>
<p>The following methods are called before dispatching to the handler method.</p>
<h3 id="check_permissionsself-request">.check_permissions(self, request)</h3>
<h3 id="check_throttlesself-request">.check_throttles(self, request)</h3>
<h3 id="perform_content_negotiationself-request-forcefalse">.perform_content_negotiation(self, request, force=False)</h3>
<h2 id="dispatch-methods">Dispatch methods</h2>
<p>The following methods are called directly by the view's <code>.dispatch()</code> method.
These perform any actions that need to occur before or after calling the handler methods such as <code>.get()</code>, <code>.post()</code>, <code>put()</code>, <code>patch()</code> and <code>.delete()</code>.</p>
<h3 id="initialself-request-42args-kwargs">.initial(self, request, *args, **kwargs)</h3>
<p>Performs any actions that need to occur before the handler method gets called.
This method is used to enforce permissions and throttling, and perform content negotiation.</p>
<p>You won't typically need to override this method.</p>
<h3 id="handle_exceptionself-exc">.handle_exception(self, exc)</h3>
<p>Any exception thrown by the handler method will be passed to this method, which either returns a <code>Response</code> instance, or re-raises the exception.</p>
<p>The default implementation handles any subclass of <code>rest_framework.exceptions.APIException</code>, as well as Django's <code>Http404</code> and <code>PermissionDenied</code> exceptions, and returns an appropriate error response.</p>
<p>If you need to customize the error responses your API returns you should subclass this method.</p>
<h3 id="initialize_requestself-request-42args-kwargs">.initialize_request(self, request, *args, **kwargs)</h3>
<p>Ensures that the request object that is passed to the handler method is an instance of <code>Request</code>, rather than the usual Django <code>HttpRequest</code>.</p>
<p>You won't typically need to override this method.</p>
<h3 id="finalize_responseself-request-response-42args-kwargs">.finalize_response(self, request, response, *args, **kwargs)</h3>
<p>Ensures that any <code>Response</code> object returned from the handler method will be rendered into the correct content type, as determined by the content negotiation.</p>
<p>You won't typically need to override this method.</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="function-based-views">Function Based Views</h1>
<blockquote>
<p>Saying [that Class based views] is always the superior solution is a mistake.</p>
<p>&mdash; <a href="http://www.boredomandlaziness.org/2012/05/djangos-cbvs-are-not-mistake-but.html">Nick Coghlan</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>REST framework also allows you to work with regular function based views.  It provides a set of simple decorators that wrap your function based views to ensure they receive an instance of <code>Request</code> (rather than the usual Django <code>HttpRequest</code>) and allows them to return a <code>Response</code> (instead of a Django <code>HttpResponse</code>), and allow you to configure how the request is processed.</p>
<h2 id="api_view">@api_view()</h2>
<p><strong>Signature:</strong> <code>@api_view(http_method_names=['GET'])</code></p>
<p>The core of this functionality is the <code>api_view</code> decorator, which takes a list of HTTP methods that your view should respond to. For example, this is how you would write a very simple view that just manually returns some data:</p>
<pre><code>from rest_framework.decorators import api_view

@api_view()
def hello_world(request):
    return Response({"message": "Hello, world!"})
</code></pre>
<p>This view will use the default renderers, parsers, authentication classes etc specified in the <a href="../settings">settings</a>.</p>
<p>By default only <code>GET</code> methods will be accepted. Other methods will respond with "405 Method Not Allowed". To alter this behavior, specify which methods the view allows, like so:</p>
<pre><code>@api_view(['GET', 'POST'])
def hello_world(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        return Response({"message": "Got some data!", "data": request.data})
    return Response({"message": "Hello, world!"})
</code></pre>
<h2 id="api-policy-decorators">API policy decorators</h2>
<p>To override the default settings, REST framework provides a set of additional decorators which can be added to your views.  These must come <em>after</em> (below) the <code>@api_view</code> decorator.  For example, to create a view that uses a <a href="../throttling">throttle</a> to ensure it can only be called once per day by a particular user, use the <code>@throttle_classes</code> decorator, passing a list of throttle classes:</p>
<pre><code>from rest_framework.decorators import api_view, throttle_classes
from rest_framework.throttling import UserRateThrottle

class OncePerDayUserThrottle(UserRateThrottle):
        rate = '1/day'

@api_view(['GET'])
@throttle_classes([OncePerDayUserThrottle])
def view(request):
    return Response({"message": "Hello for today! See you tomorrow!"})
</code></pre>
<p>These decorators correspond to the attributes set on <code>APIView</code> subclasses, described above.</p>
<p>The available decorators are:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>@renderer_classes(...)</code></li>
<li><code>@parser_classes(...)</code></li>
<li><code>@authentication_classes(...)</code></li>
<li><code>@throttle_classes(...)</code></li>
<li><code>@permission_classes(...)</code></li>
</ul>
<p>Each of these decorators takes a single argument which must be a list or tuple of classes.</p>

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