Cannot access Django query string parameter in url

Question

I am trying to access the category key from the following url within my view:

...users/8/feed?category='x'

However, when I run self.kwargs within my view, it only returns 'user_id': 8.

File urls.py:

path('users/<int:user_id>/feed', views.Posts.as_view())

File views.py:

class Posts(APIView):
    def get(self, request, **kwargs):
        return Response(self.kwargs)

What would I change such that self.kwargs returns "user_id": 8, "category": 'x' rather than just "user_id": 8?

It is important that this stays as a query string parameter using '?'. Additionally, I've seen other people implementing similar things using self.request.GET, what is the difference between using this and self.kwargs?

Answer 1

In a Django view, self.kwargs holds the URL parameters (the parts that are specified in the URL conf, like <int:user_id> in your code) and self.request.GET holds the query string parameters (the parts after the ?)

To get data from both:

class Posts(APIView):
    def get(self, request, **kwargs):
        print(self.kwargs['user_id'])

        # this returns None if there was no category specified
        print(self.request.GET.get('category'))

        new_d = {
            'user_id': self.kwargs['user_id'],
            'category': self.request.GET.get('category'),
        }
        return Response(new_d)