How to delete an object using Django Rest Framework

Question

I am trying to write an RESTful API for my event planning app using Django Rest Framework but I am having some trouble when using views that do not expect the GET HTTP method. I have read through the tutorial on the DRF site. From what I understand after reading through the tutorial and the class based view documentation on the Django site is that if there is a class based view like this (taken from the DRF tutorial)

class SnippetDetail(APIView):
    """
    Retrieve, update or delete a snippet instance.
    """
    def get_object(self, pk):
        try:
            return Snippet.objects.get(pk=pk)
        except Snippet.DoesNotExist:
            raise Http404

    def get(self, request, pk, format=None):
        snippet = self.get_object(pk)
        serializer = SnippetSerializer(snippet)
        return Response(serializer.data)

    def put(self, request, pk, format=None):
        snippet = self.get_object(pk)
        serializer = SnippetSerializer(snippet, data=request.DATA)
        if serializer.is_valid():
            serializer.save()
            return Response(serializer.data)
        return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

    def delete(self, request, pk, format=None):
        snippet = self.get_object(pk)
        snippet.delete()
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_204_NO_CONTENT) 

The different methods in the view correspond to the different HTTP Request methods. So if I have www.foo.com/bar it would do two different things based on what request method is sent to that address. So that means that I wouldn't have to specify anything else because the function that is executed is determined based on the method the URL is sent with. Is this correct?

I have this view which I tried to model after the example on the DRF site

class EventDetail(APIView):

    """
    Retrieve, update or delete a event instance.
    """

    def get_object(self, pk):
        try:
            return Event.objects.get(pk=pk)
        except Event.DoesNotExist:
            raise Http404

    def get(self, request, pk, format=None):
        event = self.get_object(pk)
        serializer = EventSerializer(event)
        return Response(serializer.data)

    def post(self, request, format=None):
        serializer = EventSerializer(data=request.DATA)
        if serializer.is_valid():
            serializer.save()
            return Response(serializer.data, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
        return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

    # def put(self, request, pk, format=None):
    #     event = self.get_object(pk)
    #     serializer = EventSerializer(event, data=request.DATA)
    #     if serializer.is_valid():
    #         serializer.save()
    #         return Response(serializer.data)
    #     return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

    def delete(self, request, pk, format=None):
        event = self.get_object(pk)
        event.delete()
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_204_NO_CONTENT

which maps to these URLs

urlpatterns = patterns('',

                       # Get event
                       url(r'^(?P<pk>\d+)/$', views.EventDetail.as_view(),
                           name='create_events'),
                       # list all events
                       url(r'^list/$', views.EventList.as_view(),
                           name='list_events'),
                       # url(r'^update$/(?P<pk>\d+)', #update event),
                       url(r'^create/$', views.EventDetail.as_view(),
                           name='create_events'),
                       # delete event
                       url(r'^delete$/(?P<pk>\d+)',
                           views.EventDetail.as_view(), name='delete_event'),

                       )

which I am trying to test using CURL with this command (like suggested here DELETE using CURL with encoded URL)

curl -X DELETE "http://127.0.0.1:8000/events/delete/1"

This will seem to do what it should:

[18/Oct/2014 22:41:27] "DELETE /events/delete/1 HTTP/1.1" 404 2707

But the actual record is not deleted from my database

Is there something here that I am forgetting to do to get these to get this to work properly?

Solution 1

You're being redundant. The HTTP method is already DELETE, so there's no /events/delete in the url. Try this:

curl -X DELETE "http://127.0.0.1:8000/events/1/"

By default, DRF's router creates detailed urls at /event/<pk> and you GET, PUT, POST and DELETE them to retrieve, update, create and delete respectively.

Solution 2

As mentioned by Kevin Stone, the pattern you're using isn't advisable, but if you want to use it, you'll need to fix the typo in your urls for the events/delete/ mapping.

 # delete event
 url(r'^delete$/(?P<pk>\d+)',
     views.EventDetail.as_view(), name='delete_event'),

should be:

 # delete event
 url(r'^delete/(?P<pk>\d+)',
     views.EventDetail.as_view(), name='delete_event'),