Django Pagination

Django provides a few classes that help you manage paginated data – that is, data that’s split across several pages, with “Previous/Next” links. These classes live in django/core/paginator.py.

Example

Give Paginator a list of objects, plus the number of items you’d like to have on each page, and it gives you methods for accessing the items for each page:

>>> from django.core.paginator import Paginator
>>> objects = ['john', 'paul', 'george', 'ringo']
>>> p = Paginator(objects, 2)
 
>>> p.count
4
>>> p.num_pages
2
>>> p.page_range
[1, 2]
 
>>> page1 = p.page(1)
>>> page1
<Page 1 of 2>
>>> page1.object_list
['john', 'paul']
 
>>> page2 = p.page(2)
>>> page2.object_list
['george', 'ringo']
>>> page2.has_next()
False
>>> page2.has_previous()
True
>>> page2.has_other_pages()
True
>>> page2.next_page_number()
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
EmptyPage: That page contains no results
>>> page2.previous_page_number()
1
>>> page2.start_index() # The 1-based index of the first item on this page
3
>>> page2.end_index() # The 1-based index of the last item on this page
4
 
>>> p.page(0)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
EmptyPage: That page number is less than 1
>>> p.page(3)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
EmptyPage: That page contains no results

Note

Note that you can give Paginator a list/tuple, a Django QuerySet, or any other object with a count() or __len__()method. When determining the number of objects contained in the passed object, Paginator will first try callingcount(), then fallback to using len() if the passed object has no count() method. This allows objects such as Django’s QuerySet to use a more efficient count() method when available.

Using Paginator in a view

Here’s a slightly more complex example using Paginator in a view to paginate a queryset. We give both the view and the accompanying template to show how you can display the results. This example assumes you have a Contacts model that has already been imported.

The view function looks like this:

from django.core.paginator import Paginator, EmptyPage, PageNotAnInteger
 
def listing(request):
    contact_list = Contacts.objects.all()
    paginator = Paginator(contact_list, 25) # Show 25 contacts per page
 
    page = request.GET.get('page')
    try:
        contacts = paginator.page(page)
    except PageNotAnInteger:
        # If page is not an integer, deliver first page.
        contacts = paginator.page(1)
    except EmptyPage:
        # If page is out of range (e.g. 9999), deliver last page of results.
        contacts = paginator.page(paginator.num_pages)
 
    return render_to_response('list.html', {"contacts": contacts})

In the template list.html, you’ll want to include navigation between pages along with any interesting information from the objects themselves:

{% for contact in contacts %}
    {# Each "contact" is a Contact model object. #}
    {{ contact.full_name|upper }}<br />
    ...
{% endfor %}
 
<div class="pagination">
    <span class="step-links">
        {% if contacts.has_previous %}
            <a href="?page={{ contacts.previous_page_number }}">previous</a>
        {% endif %}
 
        <span class="current">
            Page {{ contacts.number }} of {{ contacts.paginator.num_pages }}.
        </span>
 
        {% if contacts.has_next %}
            <a href="?page={{ contacts.next_page_number }}">next</a>
        {% endif %}
    </span>
</div>