CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythondjangodjango-formsdjango-templatesdjango-views
abhinavkulkarni
abhinavkulkarni

Reputation: 2409

Why doesn't Django allow redirect with context

As is clear from this question and the accepted answer, the only way to redirect with a context is to save it in the session. Why doesn't Django have a simple redirect method that takes a context object like render does?

For e.g., let us say, I have a login view that accepts both GET and POST requests. GET request simply renders the form in which a user can enter credentials, which will trigger a POST call to the same view. 

def login(request, *args, **kwargs):
    if request.method == 'GET':
        context = {}
        context.update(csrf(request))
        return render(request, 'login.html', context=context)
    elif request.method == 'POST':
        username = request.POST.get('username', '')
        password = request.POST.get('password', '')
        user = auth.authenticate(username=username, password=password)
        if user is not None:
            auth.login(request, user)
            return redirect('loggedin')
        else:
            # Redirect with a context object that has 'error':True, 
            # so that the login template can display error message:
            # 'Username/password is incorrect'
            redirect('login')

    return redirect('invalid')

Please notice that upon the entry of wrong combination of username/password, I would like to redirect the user to the same login page with error variable set in the context so that the template can draw out a warning.

I know, a possible answer would be to invoke render with custom context than redirect, but then isn't is a good practice to always use redirect after a post request?

Thanks.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 936

Answers (1)

Daniel Roseman
Daniel Roseman

Reputation: 599630

This is not in any way a limitation of Django, and you don't seem to have thought through how this would even work.

A redirect is a simple HTTP response that tells your browser to go and request another page. How would Django, or any framework, pass a context through that redirect? Where would it go? And the receiving URL would have its own view, which would generate its own context - what would it do with the "redirect" context? How would it know?

But in any case I don't understand why you would want to redirect back to the same page on an error. Simply redisplay it. The redirect-after-POST principle is for successful posts, not unsuccessful ones.

Upvotes: 2

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