Alan deLevie

I am working on an api of sorts. This requires that I create several methods in which data is appended in a url as a string of GET-data. To access GET-data in a Django view, you simply use request.GET['parameter']. However, it is a pain to write request.GET['parameter'] about 20 times when the only thing that is changing is the name of the parameter.

To get around this, I have devised a simple solution:

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def view_name(request):
     params = ('param1', 'param2', 'param3', 'param4')
     data = {}
     for param in params:
          param_value = request.GET[param]
          data[param] = param_value
     return HttpResponse("here is the dictionary of all of your GET-data: %s" % data)

Now you can easily alter GET (or POST) parameters without deleting and rewriting request.GET['parameter'] for the nth time. The data is accessible in a dictionary. Just want the value for param1? Just use some_var = data[param1].

And here is the code on my favorite pastebin.

UPDATE: Upon using this, I realized there is a much simpler way to accomplish the same thing:
data = request.GET. Getting the value for param1 is as easy as data['param1']. I’ll still leave this post up for learning experience purposes.