Several generic views offered by Django Rest Framework simplify the process of building REST APIs by handling common tasks such as authentication, permission checks, and other operations.

Some of the most commonly used generic views in Django Rest Framework are:

  • ListAPIView: This view displays a list of objects. It provides basic pagination and ordering functionality.
  • RetrieveAPIView: This view displays a single object. It supports retrieving an object by either its primary key or by a custom lookup field.
  • CreateAPIView: This view is used for creating new objects. It provides basic create and validate functionality.
  • UpdateAPIView: This view is used for updating objects. It supports updating an object by either its primary key or by a custom lookup field.
  • DestroyAPIView: This view is used for deleting objects. It supports deleting an object by either its primary key or custom lookup field.
  • ListCreateAPIView: This view combines the functionality of ListAPIView and CreateAPIView.
  • RetrieveUpdateAPIView: This view combines the functionality of RetrieveAPIView and UpdateAPIView.
  • RetrieveDestroyAPIView: This view combines the functionality of RetrieveAPIView and DestroyAPIView.
  • RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView: This view combines the functionality of RetrieveAPIView, UpdateAPIView, and DestroyAPIView.

These generic views can save a lot of time and reduce the amount of code that needs to be written when building REST APIs in Django. However, it’s important to understand that these views are just a starting point, and in many cases you’ll need to write custom views or customize the behavior of these views to meet the specific needs of your API.

Here is a small Django project that demonstrates how to use generic views in Django Rest Framework.

1. Here is a small Django project that demonstrates how to use generic views in Django Rest Framework.

$ django-admin startproject myproject
$ cd myproject
$ pip install djangorestframework

2. Add ‘rest_framework’ to your INSTALLED_APPS setting in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [    ...    'rest_framework',]

3. Create a Django app and add a simple model:

$ python manage.py startapp myapp

# myapp/models.py
from django.db import models

class Book(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    author = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    published_date = models.DateField()

4. Run Migrations :

$ python manage.py makemigrations
$ python manage.py migrate

5. Create a serializer for the Book model:

# myapp/serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Book

class BookSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = '__all__'

6. Create a view for the Book model using a generic view:

# myapp/views.py
from rest_framework import generics
from .models import Book
from .serializers import BookSerializer

class BookList(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
    queryset = Book.objects.all()
    serializer_class = BookSerializer

class BookDetail(generics.RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView):
    queryset = Book.objects.all()
    serializer_class = BookSerializer

7. Create a URL pattern for the views:

# myapp/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from .views import BookList, BookDetail

urlpatterns = [
    path('books/', BookList.as_view(), name='book-list'),
    path('books/<int:pk>/', BookDetail.as_view(), name='book-detail'),
]

8. Add the myapp URLs to the project’s URLs:

# myproject/urls.py
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('api/', include('myapp.urls')),
]

9. Run the development server and test the API:

$ python manage.py runserver

You can access the API at http://localhost:8000/api/books/ to view a list of books and http://localhost:8000/api/books/1/ to view a specific book.

Note:

This is just a basic example to demonstrate how to use generic views in Django Rest Framework. You may need to customize the views and add additional functionality to meet the specific needs of your API.