django_js_utils - Django JS Utils

django_js_utils is a small utility library that aims to provide JavaScript/Django developers with a few utilities that will help the development of RIA on top of a Django Backend.

Reversing Django Urls from Javascript

Why is this useful

One of the pillars of Django is DRY principle and hardcoding your urls in Javascript is violating that principle.

Moreover, building parametrized urls on the fly is error-prone and ugly.

What is included

A snippet of Javascript implementation of Django reverse function that can be found in django_js_utils.js

A view jsurls to generate a list of all of your Django urls.

Installation and usage

1. Add django_js_utils to your python path and add the django_js_utils application to your INSTALLED_APPS
2. Add the jsurls view to your URL patterns, e.g.,

(r'^jsurls.js$', 'django_js_utils.views.jsurls', {}, 'jsurls'),

3. Load the static django_js_utils.js (which contains the reverse function) and the dynamically-generated jsurls.js from every web page where you plan to use the reverse function (likely just your base.html template). Example:

<script type="text/javascript" src="{% staticfile 'django_js_utils.js' %}"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="{% url jsurls %}"></script>

4. In your JavaScript code, reverse URLs as follows:

django_js_utils.urls.resolve('dashboard')
django_js_utils.urls.resolve('time_edit', { project_id: 1, time_id: 2 })

For more information about usage, see example.html

TO-DO

1. Handle the unnamed Django urls that result in <> in urls.js file, but are not handled in Javascript resolver.
2. Write unit tests
3. Promote the code