Django snippets

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
#
# Copyright (c) 2009 Arthur Furlan <arthur.furlan@gmail.com>
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# On Debian systems, you can find the full text of the license in
# /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2

from django.shortcuts import render_to_response
form django.template import RequestContext
from django.http import Http404

STATIC_TEMPLATE_BASEPATH = 'static'

def static_template(request, template):
    '''
    Default to a static template.

    Example:

        urlpatterns = patterns('',
            ...

            # this rule SHOULD BE the last one
            (r'^(?P<template>[a-z-_/]+/?)?$',
                'myproj.apps.myapp.views.static_template'),
        )
    '''

    # setting up response vars
    context_instance = RequestContext(request)
    template = re.sub('/+$', '', template)

    try:
        # looking for a template file
        template_name = '%s/%s.html' % (STATIC_TEMPLATE_BASEPATH, template)
        return render_to_response(template_name,
            context_instance=context_instance)
    except:
        try:
            # looking for a template directory
            template = '%s/%s/index.html' % (STATIC_TEMPLATE_BASEPATH, template
            return render_to_response(template_name,
                context_instance=context_instance)
        except:
            raise Http404()