Question

When I try to load urls described in different parts of urlpatterns, it loads the same view. Obviously, there is an error in urlpatterns I use but I can’t find it.

Here is the first urls.py file:

urlpatterns = patterns('',
url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
url(r'^$', home),
url(r'^comments/', include('django.contrib.comments.urls')),
(r'^media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {
    'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT}),
url(r'^episodes/', include('episodes.urls')),
url(r'^news/', news),
url(r'', include('zinnia.urls')),))

And here is urlpatterns in episodes.urls:

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    (r'$', seasons_list),
    (r'(?P<season>\d{1})/$', episodes_by_season),
    (r'(\d{1})/(\d{1})/$', episode),
)

Everytime I try to load url like “/episodes/1” or “/episodes/1/2”, django uses only seasons_list view.

Answer 1

That’s because all URLs have an end-of-string, hence they always match the first pattern. Add beginning anchors to all of them, since included URLconfs only get the part after the match.

Whenever Django encounters include() (django.conf.urls.include()), it chops off whatever part of the URL matched up to that point and sends the remaining string to the included URLconf for further processing.

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    (r'^$', seasons_list),
    (r'^(?P<season>\d{1})/$', episodes_by_season),
    (r'^(\d{1})/(\d{1})/$', episode),
)