How do I check whether this user is anonymous or actually a user on my system?

Question

def index(request):
    the_user = request.user

In Django, how do I know if it\'s a real user or not? I tried:

if the_user:

Answer 1

You can check if request.user.is_anonymous returns True.

Answer 2

I had a similar issue except this was on a page that the login_redirect_url was sent to. I had to put in the template:

{% if user.is_authenticated %}
    Welcome Back, {{ username }}
{% endif %}

Answer 3

I know I'm doing a bit of grave digging here, but a Google search brought me to this page.

If your view def requires that the user is logged in, you can implement the @login_required decorator:

from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required

@login_required
def my_view(request):
    …

Answer 4

An Alternative to

if user.is_anonymous():
    # user is anon user

is by testing to see what the id of the user object is:

if user.id == None:
    # user is anon user
else:
    # user is a real user

see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/auth/#anonymous-users