Question

In my views I am using some module which connects to external api.
I want this module to throw some custom exception like for example ApiServerNotRespond.
Then I want this exception to cause custom view/template to be rendered. For example if in my view “connect_to_api” (where I am using my api module) api module will cause ApiServerNotRespond exception then for example not_respond view is called instead or just myapp/not_respomd.html template rendered.

I don’t want to use any middleware things because I want all config reside in my app dir not in settings file.

Where and how I can define custom exception and how to force it to render custom template after it is raised?

Answer 1

I think you can achieve this by writing a decorator.

The decorator should catch ApiServerNotRespond or any other exception you want. And if such exception occurs return response with template you want otherwise just return response from the original view.

Sample:

def custom_error_handler():
    def decorator(orig_func):
        def inner_func(request, *args, **kwargs):
            try:
                return orig_func(request, *args, **kwargs)
            except ApiServerNotRespond:
                context = {}
                return render_to_response('custom_template.html', context
                         context_instance = RequestContext(request))
            except Exception:
                #handle all other errors, may be just raise
                raise 
       return wraps(orig_func)(inner_func)
    return decorator 

In your views.py,

@custom_error_handler
def sample_view1(request):
    #your code