Order matters

#100 words#django#urls#tip

Can you spot the issue with the code below? It's an example of a common gotcha that newer Django devs encounter fairly often.

urlpatterns = [
  path('<slug:slug>', ProductDetailView.as_view(), name='detail'),
  path('add', ProductAddView.as_view(), name='add'),
]

Seen it yet? In this scenarios the second urlpattern will never get used. This is becaused add is a valid slug so Django will always match the first urlpattern and then use the first view, which will likely lead to a 404 error unless you have a Product with a slug called add

Thankfully the fix is simple and quick to implement, the lines just need to be switched around.

urlpatterns = [
  path('add', ProductAddView.as_view(), name='add'),
  path('<slug:slug>', ProductDetailView.as_view(), name='detail'),
]

Viola! You can now access the detail page and the add page.

Tomorrow