Django snippets

from django.utils.decorators import method_decorator

def view_decorator(orig_dec):
    """ 
        Convert the provided decorator to one that can be applied to a view
        class (ie. automatically decorates dispatch)
    """

    # We're going to be applying a regular decorator to a method, so the first
    # step is to convert it to a method decorator.
    method_dec = method_decorator(orig_dec)

    # This is the decorator we're actually going to return. Since we're
    # returning a class decorator, it takes a single argument, the class
    # that it's decorating. It therefore returns this as well.
    def dec(cls):
        # We're about to change what cls.dispatch refers to, so we need to
        # keep a reference to the original dispatch around so that we can
        # call it later.
        orig_dispatch = cls.dispatch
        def _dispatch(self, *args, **kwargs):
            # Right - decorate the original dispatch method using our new,
            # method-ised version of the decorator we were passed in to start
            # with
            decorated = method_dec(orig_dispatch)

            # Finally, we can call the decorated dispatch() method.
            return decorated(self, *args, **kwargs)

        # Replace the original dispatch with our new dispatch function. We
        # kept a reference to the old dispatch method earlier, in a closure.
        cls.dispatch = _dispatch
        return cls
    return dec


# usage
from foo.bar import view_decorator
from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required

@view_decorator(login_required)
class MyView(base.TemplateView):
    pass