Django CBV: Easy access to url parameters in get_context_data()?

Question

I understand that the standard way of accessing named url parameters in a custom get_context_data() method is through self.kwargs.

However, the self.kwargs syntax becomes awkward, especially when handling a significant number of parameters. So, I've been resorting to something like this at the top of every get_context_data() method -- just to get easy-to-handle local variables:

def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
    var1, var2, var3, var4, var5 = [self.kwargs[x] for x in ['var1', 'var2', 'var3', 'var4', 'var5']]
    # do stuff with var1, var2, ...
    # instead of self.kwargs['var1'], self.kwargs['var2'], ...

This is ugly and a pain, but it ultimately makes things a lot easier to work with and read.

Is there a simple way to clean it up and get named parameters into local variables? Short of overriding the get() method, subclassing Django's generic views, etc.? I suspect I'm just missing some extremely basic, fundamental python concept here.

Here is the default get() method that calls get_context_data() in case it's helpful to reference here:

def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    context = self.get_context_data(**kwargs)
    return self.render_to_response(context)

UPDATE:

My mistake, the calling get() method is actually as follows (The generic FormView is being subclassed in this case). Unfortunately the kwargs that are passed into get_context_data() are not the same as self.kwargs:

def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    form_class = self.get_form_class()
    form = self.get_form(form_class)
    return self.render_to_response(self.get_context_data(form=form))

Many thanks!

Answer 1

If kwargs passed to get_context_data is the same as self.kwargs, You could do this:

def get_context_data(self, var1, var2, var3, var4, var5, **kwargs):
    # do stuff with var1, var2, ...

EDIT: you could override the get method to pass the kwargs in. I know its not elegant, but it would work. You could make a mixin to use in multiple classes.

def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    form_class = self.get_form_class()
    form = self.get_form(form_class)
    return self.render_to_response(self.get_context_data(form=form, **kwargs))

Other than that, I really can't think of a better way. Your original solution might be best. I usually just access self.kwargs['...'] directly.