Django: AJAX-friendly views

gistfile1.py

import json
from django.views.generic import TemplateView
from django.http import HttpResponse, HttpResponseBadRequest

from lib import ExtendedDjangoJSONEncoder


class RequestMixin(object):

    def dispatch(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        self.request = request
        return super(RequestMixin, self).dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)


class AjaxView(RequestMixin, TemplateView):
    """
        This class let makes separate handlers for ajax requests
        (such as get_ajax, post_ajax, etc)
    """
    def dispatch(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        method_name = request.method.lower()
        if method_name in self.http_method_names:
            handler = None

            # check ajax request and call {method_name}_ajax class method
            if request.is_ajax():
                handler = getattr(self, u"{0}_ajax".format(method_name), None)

            # then try standard behaviour
            if not handler:
                handler = getattr(self, method_name, self.http_method_not_allowed)
        else:
            handler = self.http_method_not_allowed

        self.args = args
        self.kwargs = kwargs
        return handler(request, *args, **kwargs)

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        context = super(AjaxView, self).get_context_data(**kwargs)
        context['request'] = self.request
        return context


class JSONResponseMixin(object):
    """ Create a JSON responses """
    ajax_response_class = HttpResponse

    def render_to_ajax_response(self, context, **response_kwargs):
        response_kwargs['content_type'] = 'application/json'
        return self.ajax_response_class(self.convert_to_json(context), **response_kwargs)

    def render_to_ajax_error_response(self, error, field_name, ajax_response_class=HttpResponseBadRequest, **response_kwargs):
        response_kwargs['content_type'] = 'application/json'
        return ajax_response_class(self.convert_to_json({
            'error': error,
            'field': field_name,
        }), **response_kwargs)

    def convert_to_json(self, context):
        if 'request' in context:
            del context['request']  # django request isn't json-serializable
        if 'view' in context:
            del context['view']  # django view object isn't json-serializable
        # return serializers.serialize('json', context);
        return json.dumps(context, ensure_ascii=True, cls=ExtendedDjangoJSONEncoder)  # See gist:10526923