db.models.Model.get_absolute_url()

Model.get_absolute_url()

Define a get_absolute_url() method to tell Django how to calculate the canonical URL for an object. To callers, this method should appear to return a string that can be used to refer to the object over HTTP.

For example:

def get_absolute_url(self):
    return "/people/%i/" % self.id

While this code is correct and simple, it may not be the most portable way to to write this kind of method. The reverse() function is usually the best approach.

For example:

def get_absolute_url(self):
    from django.urls import reverse
    return reverse('people.views.details', args=[str(self.id)])

One place Django uses get_absolute_url() is in the admin app. If an object defines this method, the object-editing page will have a “View on site” link that will jump you directly to the object’s public view, as given by get_absolute_url().

Similarly, a couple of other bits of Django, such as the syndication feed framework, use get_absolute_url() when it is defined. If it makes sense for your model’s instances to each have a unique URL, you should define get_absolute_url().

def get_absolute_url(self):
    return '/%s/' % self.name

It’s good practice to use get_absolute_url() in templates, instead of hard-coding your objects’ URLs. For example, this template code is bad:

<!-- BAD template code. Avoid! -->
<a href="/people/{{ object.id }}/">{{ object.name }}</a>

This template code is much better:

<a href="{{ object.get_absolute_url }}">{{ object.name }}</a>

The logic here is that if you change the URL structure of your objects, even for something simple such as correcting a spelling error, you don’t want to have to track down every place that the URL might be created. Specify it once, in get_absolute_url() and have all your other code call that one place.