Passing variable from django template to view

Question

I'm building my first site with django 1.7 and am having a hard time figuring out how to pass a variable from a click to a view. My GET is also empty.

My template has a table with Facebook Account IDs, when clicked should show a list of Facebook pages that user Admins.

My template:

{% for SocialAccount in accountlist %}    <tr>       <td><a href="{% url 'INI:fbpages' %}">{{ SocialAccount.uid }}</a></td>       <td>{{ SocialAccount.extra_data.first_name }}</td>       <td>{{ SocialAccount.extra_data.last_name }}</td>       <td>{{ SocialAccount.extra_data.email }}</td>    </tr> {% endfor %} 

and my view:

def fbpages(request, fbuser):     djuser = request.user.id     context = RequestContext(request)     fbuser = 1234634     pagelist = facebook.pages(request, djuser, fbuser)     blocks = {'title': 'Facebook Pages',           'pagelist': pagelist}     return render(request, "initiative/ListFBPages.html", blocks) 

I could do this easily if I put the ID in the URL but I don't want to expose a page/user ID in the url. I feel like there's an easy solution but I haven't figured it out.

Thanks for you help.

Answer 1

You can only send data to Django views from the template in 4 different methods. In your case you will probably only be able to use option 1 and 4 if you don't want the information in the URL.

Since I am new to StackOverflow, I can't post more than 2 links so if you search the following post you will find more information about the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

"what is a more efficient way to pass variables from template to view in django"

1. Post

So you would submit a form with value.

    # You can retrieve your code in your views.py via     request.POST.get('value') 

2. Query Parameters

So you would pass //localhost:8000/?id=123

    # You can retrieve your code in your views.py via     request.GET.get('id') 

3. From the URL (See here for example)

So you would pass //localhost:8000/12/results/

    # urls.py     urlpatterns = patterns(         ...         url(r'^(?P<question_id>\d+)/results/$', views.results, name='results'),         ...     ) 

and in your views...

    # views.py     # To retrieve (question_id)     def detail(request, question_id):         ...         return HttpResponse("blahblah") 

4. Session (via cookie)

Downside of using session is you would have had to pass it to the view or set it earlier.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/topics/http/sessions/

    # views.py     # Set the session variable     request.session['uid'] = 123456      # Retrieve the session variable     var = request.session.get['uid']