My views.py
has become too big and it\'s hard to find the right view.
How do I split it in several files and then import it? Does it involve any speed l
In Django everything is a Python module (*.py). You can create a view folder with an __init__.py
inside and you still will be able to import your views, because this also implements a Python module. But an example would be better.
Your original views.py
might look like this :
def view1(arg):
pass
def view2(arg):
pass
With the following folder/file structure it will work the same :
views/
__init__.py
viewsa.py
viewsb.py
viewsa.py
:
def view1(arg):
pass
viewsb.py
:
def view2(arg):
pass
__init__.py
:
from viewsa import view1
from viewsb import view2
The quick explanation would be: when you write from views import view1
Python will look for view1 in
views.py
, which is what happens in the first (original) case
views/__init__.py
, which is what happens in the second case. Here, __init__.py
is able to provide the view1 method because it imports it.
With this kind of solution, you might have no need to change import
or urlpattern
s arguments in urls.py
If you have many methods in each new view file, you might find it useful to make the imports in views/__init__.py
use *
, like this:
from viewsa import *
from viewsb import *
I actually don't know about speed issues (but I doubt there are any).
For Models it might be a bit difficult.
Since Django just expects a view to be a callable object, you can put then wherever you like in your PYTHONPATH. So you could for instance just make a new package myapp.views and put views into multiple modules there. You will naturally have to update your urls.py and other modules that reference these view callables.
I've had to do this before (for clarities sake)
The way I did this was to create a views
directory, then, in that, create a file called __init__.py
Now, when you're calling in your urls.py
, you simply need to add another part
For example, previously, you may have called:-
url(r'^calendar/(?P<year>\d\d\d\d)/$', 'myproject.calendar.views.year')
url(r'^calendar/(?P<year>\d\d\d\d)/(?P<user>[a-z]+)/$', 'myproject.calendar.views.year_by_user')
You can now call something along the lines of
url(r'^calendar/(?P<year>\d\d\d\d)/$', 'myproject.calendar.views.year.index')
url(r'^calendar/(?P<year>\d\d\d\d)/(?P<user>[a-z]+)/$', 'myproject.calendar.views.year.user')
This is, of course, assuming that you had views/year.py
containing the functions index
and user
;)
Basically, you can put your code, whereever you wish. Just make sure, you change the import statements accordingly, e.g. for the views in the urls.py
.
Not knowing your actual code its hard to suggest something meaningful. Maybe you can use some kind of filename prefix, e.g. views_helper.py
, views_fancy.py
, views_that_are_not_so_often_used.py
or so ...
Another option would be to create a views
directory with an __init__.py
, where you import all subviews. If you have a need for a large number of files, you can create more nested subviews as your views grow ...
Simple answer: Yes.
Best is to make a directory called views and then in your urls.py do:
import views
...
url(r'^classroom$', views.school.klass, name="classroom"),
Just for sharing, I had a bit of issues with Vincent Demeester's answer. Everything is fine except in init.py file, I have to write in this way:
__init__.py:
from .viewsa import *
from .viewsb import *
This way I still don't need to change my import
method in urls.py. I am on Python 3.6.1 and Django 1.11.4.