How to return the current user with Django Rest Framework

Question

I am currently developing an API using Django.

However, I would like to create a view that returns the current User with the following endpoint: /users/current/.

To do so, I created a list view and filtered the queryset on the user that made the request. That works, but the result is a list, not a single object. Combined with pagination, the result looks way too complicated and inconsistent compared to other endpoints.

Do you have any idea?

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

The best way is to use the power of viewsets.ModelViewSet like so:

class UserViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = User.objects.all()
    serializer_class = UserSerializer

    def get_object(self):
        pk = self.kwargs.get('pk')

        if pk == "current":
            return self.request.user

        return super(UserViewSet, self).get_object()

viewsets.ModelViewSet is a combination of mixins.CreateModelMixin + mixins.RetrieveModelMixin + mixins.UpdateModelMixin + mixins.DestroyModelMixin + mixins.ListModelMixin + viewsets.GenericViewSet. 

If you need just list all or get particular user including currently authenticated you need just replace it like this

class UserViewSet(mixins.RetrieveModelMixin, mixins.ListModelMixin, viewsets.GenericViewSet):

Hope it helps!!

Thank You!!