Validating a slug in Django
This question is half a decade old so in updating my question I should explain that I'm at least nodding to the past where some features might not have existed.
The easiest way to handle slugs in forms these days is to just use django.models.SlugField. It will validate itself for you and imply that this field is an index.
If you're not using this on a model, you can still hook in the same validator that SlugField uses:
from django.core.validators import validate_slugslug = forms.CharField(..., validators=[validate_slug])If you just want to do behind-the-scenes checking or write your own validator, you can use a similar technique to pull in Django's definition of a valid slug. It's just the compiled regex that validate_slug above uses:
from django.core.validators import slug_reif slug_re.match(...): ...I can't imagine it will change, but by locking yourself to Django's idea of a slug, you'll ensure consistency if Django does change one day.