Django Search Implementation, conditional routing - django

Question

I am trying to implement basic search functionality with Django. Could use help with accessing query inputs from forms in templates in functional or class based views. Intended functionality:
If exact search query page exists, display that page
If there is a page title that contains what was queried, show results of all
If neither, display a message stating no results found
I'm just learning, so I tried functional views and class based views. I've spent a really long time on documentation/videos/textbooks and don't see how to get the intended behavior out of class-based view. I understand collecting object_list and getting query_set, but how do you then route to those three different conditions. I tried overriding dispatch() and as_views() method to no avail. Tried with a Django form class and without.
For some reason, the functional view keeps executing the first try statement instead of throwing a DoesNotExist exception when the exact match isn't found. So it shows the entry page instead of the search results page. It seems like the request.GET is None type no matter what, as when I try to print nothing shows up.
urls.py
from re import search
from django.urls import path
from . import views
from .views import IndexPageView, SearchView
app_name = "wiki"
urlpatterns = [
# ex: /wiki/
path("", views.index, name="index"),
# path("", IndexPageView.as_view(), name="index"),
# ex: /wiki/EntryPageName
path("wiki/<str:entry>/", views.displayEntry, name="displayEntry"),
# path("wiki/search/", views.searchView, name="searchView")
path("wiki/search/", SearchView.as_view(), name="searchView")
]
model
class Entry(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=64)
def __str__(self):
return f"{self.title}"
content = models.TextField()
views.py
def searchView(request):
searchedTerm = request.GET.get('q')
try:
exactMatch = Entry.objects.get(title=searchedTerm)
entryTitle = exactMatch.title
entryHTML = markdown2.markdown(exactMatch.content)
return render(request, "encyclopedia/displayEntry.html", {
"entryTitle": entryTitle,
"entryHTML": entryHTML
})
except:
try:
searchResults = Entry.objects.filter(Q(title__icontains=searchedTerm))
return render(request, "encyclopedia/searchResults.html", {
"searchResults": searchResults,
"searchedTerm": searchedTerm
})
except:
return render(request, "encyclopedia/searchResults.html", {
"emptyResults": f"No entries found matching: {searchedTerm}",
"searchedTerm": searchedTerm
})
class SearchView(ListView):
template_name = "encyclopedia/searchResults.html"
model = Entry
context_object_name = "searchList"
def get_queryset(self):
searchedTerm = self.request.GET.get('q')
try:
searchResults = Entry.objects.get(title=searchedTerm)
return searchResults
except:
try:
searchResults = Entry.objects.filter(Q(title__icontains=searchedTerm))
return searchResults
except:
pass
def as_view():
searchedTerm = self.request.GET.get('q')
try:
exactMatch = Entry.objects.get(title=searchedTerm)
entryTitle = exactMatch.title
entryHTML = markdown2.markdown(exactMatch.content)
return render(request, "encyclopedia/displayEntry.html", {
"entryTitle": entryTitle,
"entryHTML": entryHTML,
})
except:
searchResults = Entry.objects.filter(Q(title__icontains=searchedTerm))
return render(request, "encyclopedia/searchResults.html", {
"searchResults": searchResults,
"searchedTerm": searchedTerm
})
else:
return render(request, "encyclopedia/searchResults.html", {
"emptyResults": f"No entries found matching: {searchedTerm}",
"searchedTerm": searchedTerm
})
search form from layout.html
<form action="{% url 'wiki:search' %}" method="GET">
<input class="search" type="text" name="q" placeholder="Search Encyclopedia">
<!-- <input type="submit" value="submit"> -->
</form>
display entry page template
{% extends "encyclopedia/layout.html" %}
{% block title %}
{% if entryTitle %}
{{ entryTitle }}
{% else %}
Page Not Found!
{% endif %}
{% endblock %}
{% block body %}
{% if entryHTML %}
{{ entryHTML|safe }}
{% else %}
<p>This page does not exist yet.</p>
<p>Check your spelling or create a new entry!</p>
<p>?? {{ testPrint }}</p>
{% endif %}
{% endblock %}
search results page
{% extends "encyclopedia/layout.html" %}
{% block title %}
Search Results: {{ searchedTerm }}
{% endblock %}
{% block body %}
{% if searchResults %}
<h3>Search Results</h3>
<ul>
{% for result in searchResults %}
<li>{{ result.title }}</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>
{% else %}
<h3>{{ emptyResults }}</h3>
{% endif %}
{% endblock %}

Answer 1

Models
class Entry(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=64)
content = models.TextField()
def __str__(self):
return self.title
Views
from django.views.generic.list import ListView
from django.views.generic.detail import DetailView
from app.models import Entry
class EntryListView(ListView):
model = Entry
paginate_by = 100 # if pagination is desired
def get_queryset(self):
queryset = super().get_queryset()
q = self.request.GET.get("q")
if q:
queryset = queryset.filter(title__icontains=q)
return queryset
class EntryDetailView(DetailView):
model = Entry
Urls
from django.urls import path
from app.views import EntryListView, EntryDetailView
urlpatterns = [
path('', EntryListView.as_view(), name='entry-list'),
path('<int:pk>/', ArticleDetailView.as_view(), name='entry-detail'),
]