Django REST framework custom format for all out responses

After some research I found a way to do this. I had to override the default behaviour of the ModelViewSet to output a different response.

I created a custom Response format initially:

class ResponseInfo(object):    def __init__(self, user=None, **args):        self.response = {            "status": args.get('status', True),            "error": args.get('error', 200),            "data": args.get('data', []),            "message": args.get('message', 'success')        }

Then use this custom format in every method of the ModelViewSet:

class ResponseModelViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):    def __init__(self, **kwargs):        self.response_format = ResponseInfo().response        super(ResponseModelViewSet, self).__init__(**kwargs)    def list(self, request, *args, **kwargs):        response_data = super(ResponseModelViewSet, self).list(request, *args, **kwargs)        self.response_format["data"] = response_data.data        self.response_format["status"] = True        if not response_data.data:            self.response_format["message"] = "List empty"        return Response(self.response_format)    def create(self, request, *args, **kwargs):        response_data = super(ResponseModelViewSet, self).create(request, *args, **kwargs)        self.response_format["data"] = response_data.data        self.response_format["status"] = True        return Response(self.response_format)    def retrieve(self, request, *args, **kwargs):        response_data = super(ResponseModelViewSet, self).retrieve(request, *args, **kwargs)        self.response_format["data"] = response_data.data        self.response_format["status"] = True        if not response_data.data:            self.response_format["message"] = "Empty"        return Response(self.response_format)    def update(self, request, *args, **kwargs):        response_data = super(ResponseModelViewSet, self).update(request, *args, **kwargs)        self.response_format["data"] = response_data.data        self.response_format["status"] = True        return Response(self.response_format)    def destroy(self, request, *args, **kwargs):        response_data = super(ResponseModelViewSet, self).destroy(request, *args, **kwargs)        self.response_format["data"] = response_data.data        self.response_format["status"] = True        return Response(self.response_format)

This would be more a more robust solution, as it can be used with Generic Views hassle free.

Also, the checks in render() can be easily altered as per the needs (Eg., handling no-2XX in this solution).

from rest_framework.renderers import JSONRendererclass CustomRenderer(JSONRenderer):    def render(self, data, accepted_media_type=None, renderer_context=None):        status_code = renderer_context['response'].status_code        response = {          "status": "success",          "code": status_code,          "data": data,          "message": None        }        if not str(status_code).startswith('2'):            response["status"] = "error"            response["data"] = None            try:                response["message"] = data["detail"]            except KeyError:                response["data"] = data        return super(CustomRenderer, self).render(response, accepted_media_type, renderer_context)