Create a route with optional URL parameters in Flask
David Y.
—The Problem
How do I write a Flask route with optional URL parameters?
The Solution
To create a Flask route with an optional URL parameter, we can use two route decorators on the same function. One will describe the URL without the optional parameter, and the other will describe the URL with the optional parameter.
@app.route('/products', defaults={'product_id': None}) @app.route('/products/<product_id>') def show_product(product_id): if product_id: # code to show individual product else: # code to show whole catalog
This same method will work for multiple optional URL parameters.
@app.route('/products', defaults={'product_id': None, 'store_id': None}) @app.route('/products/<product_id>', defaults={'store_id': None}) @app.route('/products/<product_id>/<store_id>') def show_product(product_id, store_id): if product_id: if store_id: # code to show individual product at specific store else: # code to show individual product everywhere else: # code to show whole catalog
Note that it would be impossible to extend the above function to accept a store_id without a product_id, as the positional nature of the arguments would create an ambiguity about which ID was being specified.
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