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Exercise - Create views

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We want to update our application to provide a list of dog shelters. We also want the application to allow someone to click or tap an individual shelter to see the details. We'll do this by creating two views and then registering the appropriate paths.

Create views

1. In Visual Studio Code, open dog_shelters/views.py.

2. At the end of the line that reads from django.shortcuts import render, add , get_object_or_404. The line should now read:

   from django.shortcuts import render, get_object_or_404
   

3. Below the line that reads from django.shortcuts import render, add the following Python code to import your models:

   from . import models
   

4. At the end of views.py, add the following code to load all shelters, create the context object for the template, and then render the template for the user. This will become our list view for shelters and the default page for our site.

   def shelter_list(request):
       shelters = models.Shelter.objects.all()
       context = {'shelters': shelters}
       return render(request, 'shelter_list.html', context)
   

5. At the end of views.py, add the following code to load a specific shelter by its pk or primary key, create the context object for the template, and then render the template for the user. This will become the details page for a shelter.

   def shelter_detail(request, pk):
       shelter = get_object_or_404(models.Shelter, pk=pk)
       context = {'shelter': shelter}
       return render(request, 'shelter_detail.html', context)
   

Create the URLconf

For our views to be callable, we need to register the appropriate paths.

1. Create a new file in dog_shelters called urls.py.

2. Add the following code to register the paths for the two views that we created:

   from django.urls import path
   from . import views
   
   urlpatterns = [
       path('', views.shelter_list, name='shelter_list'),
       path('shelter/<int:pk>', views.shelter_detail, name='shelter_detail'),
       # More patterns to come later
   ]
   

Notice that we created a default path ('') to point to our shelter_list view. We also registered shelter/<int:pk> to reference our shelter_detail view. As highlighted earlier, pk will be passed as the pk parameter to shelter_detail.

Register URLconf with our project

Django uses one core urls.py file as its URLconf. As a result, we need to ensure that the one we created is properly registered.

1. Open project/urls.py.

2. Toward the bottom of the file, find line 17, which reads:

   from django.urls import path
   

   At the end of the line, add , include. The new line 17 should now be the following:

   from django.urls import path, include
   

3. Below the line that reads TODO: Register URLconf, add the following:

   # TODO: Register URLconf
   path('', include('dog_shelters.urls')),
   

   Important

   The trailing comma is required.

4. Save all files by selecting File > Save All.

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