ListView Basics

A Minimal ListView

Setting model on a ListView subclass is enough for Django to query every row of that model and pass it to the template as a list, with zero manual queryset code.

Example: A Minimal ListView

BookListView automatically runs Book.objects.all() and renders it as the "books" context variable.

from django.views.generic import ListView
from .models import Book


class BookListView(ListView):
    model = Book
    template_name = 'books/book_list.html'
    context_object_name = 'books'

Rendering the List in a Template

The template receives the queryset under the name given by context_object_name (or object_list by default) and can loop over it with the standard {% for %} template tag.

Example: Rendering the List in a Template

The {% for %} tag iterates the books queryset passed in by BookListView, with {% empty %} handling the zero-results case.

{% for book in books %}
  <p>{{ book.title }}</p>
{% empty %}
  <p>No books yet.</p>
{% endfor %}

Customizing the Queryset

Overriding get_queryset() lets you filter, order, or limit which objects ListView shows, instead of always showing every row via the model attribute alone.

Note: Always return a queryset (not a list) from get_queryset() so pagination and further chaining still work.

Example: Customizing the Queryset

get_queryset() overrides the default Book.objects.all() with a filtered, ordered queryset.

from django.views.generic import ListView
from .models import Book


class PublishedBookListView(ListView):
    model = Book

    def get_queryset(self):
        return Book.objects.filter(is_published=True).order_by('title')