Should I use Middleware or write a decorator for this?

I have a situation where a user will be asked to enter their postal code, once they do then they are redirected to the site with content relevant to the postal code they've entered in. There will be categories etc. In a nutshell, the user will see content only relevant to their area.

PLAN -- I want to store their postal code in a cookie and re-use it every time they come back to the site, of course if there is no postal code t开发者_开发百科hey should be directed to enter it in a form. The form will be presented before any other content will be.

My questions are should I use a decorator for this and decorate the views with a custom decorator? Or should write middleware? if I write a custom middleware for this should I use process_request process_view, it seems to me process_request gets called on EVERY request, this may pose a problem.

Thanks!

JeffC

If you want to avoid repetition, you'll need to write a middleware. If it's on EVERY page as you say, and the ZIP code is a prerequisite for using the site, then having a middleware call process_request on every request isn't necessarily a bad thing.

On the other hand, is this necessary? Couldn't your URLs just read like: /blah/12345/videos/? Then instead of having to rely on a cookie for a bookmark, your users can just remmber that page. That would negate your having to write a view, as well.

The main question here is how often will you need to use the ZIP code from the cookie. Will it affect the whole site? Or only one part of it?

If the "ZIP-oriented" content will be used only in one part (one or more, but not the whole application), then go for the decorator. It should check for the cookie and if it's not present - redirect to the ZIP selection form. If it's present - continue processing the view in which you will be able to access the ZIP code and use it accordingly.

If the ZIP code is really going to affect the majority of your service and you don't want to decorate every single view - you can go for the middleware. But you are right - it will be called on every request, so be sure it's absolutely necessary.