login_required decorator on ajax views to return 401 instead of 302

Question

While writing some views to respond to ajax requests i find it somewhat strange that the login_required decorator always returns a 302 status code for not authenticated user

Answer 1

That's a pretty good attempt. Here's a couple of problems I spotted:

1. Your _decorator function should return _wrapped_view.
2. The indentation for your if function is None block is a bit off -- the login_required_ajax function needs to return the decorated function.

Here's the decorator with those changes made:

def login_required_ajax(function=None,redirect_field_name=None):
    """
    Just make sure the user is authenticated to access a certain ajax view

    Otherwise return a HttpResponse 401 - authentication required
    instead of the 302 redirect of the original Django decorator
    """
    def _decorator(view_func):
        def _wrapped_view(request, *args, **kwargs):
            if request.user.is_authenticated():
                return view_func(request, *args, **kwargs)
            else:
                return HttpResponse(status=401)
        return _wrapped_view

    if function is None:
        return _decorator
    else:
        return _decorator(function)