Question

I have a view that is being called with ajax and returns JSON.

I’d like it to require authentication.

@login_required
def my_view(request):
    data = some_data
    return HttpResponse(json.dumps(data), mimetype='application/json')

Ideally, if I’m not authenticated this view should return a HTTP status 401 Unauthorized or something similar, so my javascript can correctly interpret the response.

Is it a good practice for requiring authentication on Ajax requests ?
If yes, how could I get this HTTP status from the @login_required decorator ?

Answer 1

1. whether it is a good practice or not depends on what the resource the ajax request is requesting
2. you don’t have to use login_required decorator, you can simply check the credentials inside my_view instead. And if check fails, return 401.
3. If you have quite a few resources and you want to build a REST API on top of it for Ajax purpose, consider using a framework such as Tastypie.