Disable a method in a ViewSet, django-rest-framework

Question

ViewSets have automatic methods to list, retrieve, create, update, delete, ...

I would like to disable some of those, and the solution I came up with is probably not a good one, since OPTIONS still states those as allowed.

Any idea on how to do this the right way?

class SampleViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = api_models.Sample.objects.all()
    serializer_class = api_serializers.SampleSerializer

    def list(self, request):
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_405_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED)
    def create(self, request):
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_405_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED)

Answer 1

The definition of ModelViewSet is:

class ModelViewSet(mixins.CreateModelMixin, 
                   mixins.RetrieveModelMixin, 
                   mixins.UpdateModelMixin,
                   mixins.DestroyModelMixin,
                   mixins.ListModelMixin,
                   GenericViewSet)

So rather than extending ModelViewSet, why not just use whatever you need? So for example:

from rest_framework import viewsets, mixins

class SampleViewSet(mixins.RetrieveModelMixin,
                    mixins.UpdateModelMixin,
                    mixins.DestroyModelMixin,
                    viewsets.GenericViewSet):
    ...

With this approach, the router should only generate routes for the included methods.

Reference:

ModelViewSet

Answer 2

You could keep using viewsets.ModelViewSet and define http_method_names on your ViewSet.

Example

class SampleViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = api_models.Sample.objects.all()
    serializer_class = api_serializers.SampleSerializer
    http_method_names = ['get', 'post', 'head']

Once you add http_method_names, you will not be able to do put and patch anymore.

If you want put but don't want patch, you can keep http_method_names = ['get', 'post', 'head', 'put']

Internally, DRF Views extend from Django CBV. Django CBV has an attribute called http_method_names. So you can use http_method_names with DRF views too.

[Shameless Plug]: If this answer was helpful, you will like my series of posts on DRF at https://www.agiliq.com/blog/2019/04/drf-polls/.

Answer 3

If you are trying to disable the PUT method from a DRF viewset, you can create a custom router:

from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter

class NoPutRouter(DefaultRouter):
    """
    Router class that disables the PUT method.
    """
    def get_method_map(self, viewset, method_map):

        bound_methods = super().get_method_map(viewset, method_map)

        if 'put' in bound_methods.keys():
            del bound_methods['put']

        return bound_methods

By disabling the method at the router, your api schema documentation will be correct.

Answer 4

How to disable "DELETE" method for ViewSet in DRF

class YourViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    def _allowed_methods(self):
        return [m for m in super(YourViewSet, self)._allowed_methods() if m not in ['DELETE']]

P.S. This is more reliable than explicitly specifying all the necessary methods, so there is less chance of forgetting some of important methods OPTIONS, HEAD, etc

P.P.S. by default DRF has http_method_names = ['get', 'post', 'put', 'patch', 'delete', 'head', 'options', 'trace']