Non-global middleware in Django

In Django there is a settings file that defines the middleware to be run on each request. This middleware setting is global. Is there a way to specify a set of middleware on a per-view basis? I want to have specific urls use a set of middleware different from the global set.

Solution 1:

You want decorator_from_middleware.

from django.utils.decorators import decorator_from_middleware

@decorator_from_middleware(MyMiddleware)
def view_function(request):
    #blah blah

It doesn't apply to URLs, but it works per-view, so you can have fine-grained control over its effect.

Solution 2:

I have a real solution for this issue. Warning; it's a little bit of a hack.

""" Allows short-curcuiting of ALL remaining middleware by attaching the
@shortcircuitmiddleware decorator as the TOP LEVEL decorator of a view.

Example settings.py:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',

    # THIS MIDDLEWARE
    'myapp.middleware.shortcircuit.ShortCircuitMiddleware',

    # SOME OTHER MIDDLE WARE YOU WANT TO SKIP SOMETIMES
    'myapp.middleware.package.MostOfTheTimeMiddleware',

    # MORE MIDDLEWARE YOU WANT TO SKIP SOMETIMES HERE
)

Example view to exclude from MostOfTheTimeMiddleware (and any subsequent):

@shortcircuitmiddleware
def myview(request):
    ...

"""

def shortcircuitmiddleware(f):
    """ view decorator, the sole purpose to is 'rename' the function
    '_shortcircuitmiddleware' """
    def _shortcircuitmiddleware(*args, **kwargs):
        return f(*args, **kwargs)
    return _shortcircuitmiddleware

class ShortCircuitMiddleware(object):
    """ Middleware; looks for a view function named '_shortcircuitmiddleware'
    and short-circuits. Relies on the fact that if you return an HttpResponse
    from a view, it will short-circuit other middleware, see:
    https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/http/middleware/#process-request
     """
    def process_view(self, request, view_func, view_args, view_kwargs):
        if view_func.func_name == "_shortcircuitmiddleware":
            return view_func(request, *view_args, **view_kwargs)
        return None

Edit: removed previous version that ran the view twice.

Solution 3:

Here's a solution I used recently to address the scenario you presented in a comment to Ned's answer...

It assumes that:

A) this is a custom middleware or one that you can extend/wrap with your own middleware class

B) your logic can wait until process_view instead of process_request, because in process_view you can inspect the view_func parameter after it's been resolved. (Or you can adjust the code below to use urlresolvers as indicated by Ignacio).

# settings.py
EXCLUDE_FROM_MY_MIDDLEWARE = set('myapp.views.view_to_exclude', 
    'myapp.views.another_view_to_exclude')

# some_middleware.py

from django.conf import settings

def process_view(self, request, view_func, view_args, view_kwargs):
    # Get the view name as a string
    view_name = '.'.join((view_func.__module__, view_func.__name__))

    # If the view name is in our exclusion list, exit early
    exclusion_set = getattr(settings, 'EXCLUDE_FROM_MY_MIDDLEWARE', set())
    if view_name in exclusion_set:
        return None

    # ... middleware as normal ...
    #
    # Here you can also set a flag of some sort on the `request` object
    # if you need to conditionally handle `process_response` as well.

There may be a way to generalize this pattern further, but this accomplished my goal fairly well.

To answer your more general question, I don't think there is anything in the Django libraries to help you out with this currently. Would be a good topic for the django-users mailing list if it hasn't already been addressed there.