Django views as classes

Question

I did some googling and really couldn't find an answer to this.

Let's say I have the following simple class:

class dashboard:
    def index(self, request):
        return HttpResponse("Hello world")

    def profile(self, request):
        return HttpResponse("Your profile")

    def user(self, request, user_id):
        usr = User.objects.get(id=user_id)
        return HttpResponse("Some info on usr")

What I want to do is map:

mysite.com/dashboard => dashboard.index

mysite.com/dashboard/profile => dashboard.profile

mysite.com/dashboard/user/1 => dashboard.user(1)

Without having to have a URL pattern for each URL - such that:

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^/dashboard$', views.dashboard, name='dashboard'),
    url(r'^/dashboard/profile$', views.profile, name='profile'),
    # etc...
)

I thought about this and the only I could think this could work is:

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^/(?<root1>\w+)/(?<root2>\w+)/(?<root3>)$', urltrigger, name='trigger'),
    # etc...
)

# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/547829/how-to-dynamically-load-a-python-class
def my_import(name):
    mod = __import__(name)
    components = name.split('.')
    for comp in components[1:]:
        mod = getattr(mod, comp)
    return mod

def urltrigger(request, root1, root2 = None, root3 = None):
    try:
        cmodule = my_import(root1)
        dync = cmodule() # perhaps request is a parameter to the constructor?
        if root2 = None:
            dync.index(request)
        else:
            method = getattr(dync, root2)
            if root3 == None:
                method()
            else:
                method(root3)
    except:
        raise Http404

(Excuse the quickly done Python code) This really shouldn't introduce any security issues as the class module has to exist in pythonpath - and if an attacker does have access to files in pythonpath they could just as easily modify the other views/code.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Using this approach I would probably lose the ability to use Django decorators - which I'm ok with as I could mimic the behavior of decorators I would want (such as ensuring a person is logged in and/or is in specific groups) in the constructor of the class.

Edit:

I got it all working - it was only like 10 lines of code.

Edit2:

For those wondering:

Put this as a pattern:

(r'^(.+?)/(?:(.+?)/)?$', free_pattern)

And here is free_pattern (I've obviously modified it since then):

def free_pattern(request, view, segments=""):
    if segments != None:
        segments = segments.split(r'/')

    match = re.match("(\.|\\|/)", view)
    if match:
        raise Http404

    dnyc = None
    try:
        if not segments:

            cmodule = __import__(view + ".controllers." + view, globals(), locals(), [view], -1)
            dnyc = getattr(cmodule, view)

        else:
            cmodule = __import__(view + ".controllers." + segments[0], globals(), locals(), [segments[0]], -1)
            dnyc = getattr(cmodule, segments[0])
    except Exception, e:
        return HttpResponse(str(e))

    c = dnyc(request)
    if segments == None or len(segments) == 1:
        return c.index()
    else:
        lst = segments[2:]
        return getattr(c, segments[1])(*lst)

What that will do is if you go to /site/ it will load the class site in site/controllers/site.py and call the index method:

class site:
    def __init__(self, request):
        pass # do something with request
    def index(self):
        pass

if you go to /site/page it will load the class page in site/controllers/page.py and call the index method. Going to /site/page/one will invoke the one method in class page, and finally going to /site/page/one/1/ will pass the 1 (and anything after it) as a parameter as parameters to the method.

If you don't think this would work - tell me why, not "I'm really glad I would never have to support that". The later doesn't help me, doesn't help other people and doesn't explain why such as a system wouldn't work. In my opinion - a comment alone will not answer that.

If you are wondering I'm stuck on Django 1.4 because I must use Python 2.5 without virtualenv/pip/easy_install. I really want to - but it's non-negotiable. This isn't just for my "personal" use either - so switching a web host is also out of the question.

One thing I want to note - using official Django CBV is only introducing the same problems (ignoring security) - such as inability to apply Django decorators such as login_requried. One can see this SO post ( https://stackoverflow.com/a/11525851/195722 ) for a work around.