Django class based view URL API

Question

I kind of started making an API for my site in a Django class based view because it seemed logical and now it has gotten quite large and unruly and I am starting to wonder if I am doing this correctly.

class URLAPI(View):
 def get(self, request):
 if request.GET.get('param') == "foo":
 ...
 elif request.GET.get('param') == "bar":
 ...
 elif request.GET.get('param') == "foo" and request.GET.get('param2') == "arg":
 ...

I did the same thing with the post function creating conditionals for the data that is coming in. What do you think about this?

• Kevin Brown-Silva: Huge recommendation: use an existing framework like Django REST framework instead of rolling your own. You'll save a lot of time down the road, because you won't have to handle all of the special casing that's required. (Disclaimer: I'm a maintainer of DRF, but if there is a better API framework that suits your needs, my comment also applies to it)
• Joff: I've been meaning to look into that, I had this one nearly complete by the time I realized that did what I needed. Will definitely check it out in the future

Answer 1

If you are going to have a lot of cases, and each one is quite complex (more than a few lines) I would ditch the if/elif approach.

Instead I would have inner functions, one for each case. Then a dictionary will map each case ('foo', 'bar' etc) to its function.

For example:

class URLAPI(View):
 def get(self, request):
 def act_on_foo():
 ...
 def act_on_bar():
 ...
 func_dict = {'foo': act_on_foo,
 'bar': act_on_bar}
 param = request.GET.get('param')
 func_dict[param]()

Perhaps an even better design would be to move the act_on_foo and act_on_bar functions to another module to decouple the view from the logic behind it.

And some nitpicking: Try to avoid mixing " and ' in the same piece of code. Pick one and stick to it.

• Joff: ahh I know about the " and ' it is bothering me too. I switched some time back to " and I didn't want to go through the code and change everything