variable_cache_control - Django view decorator to set max_age in runtime

tl;dr; If you use the django.views.decorators.cache.cache_control decorator, consider this one instead to change the max_age depending on the request.

I had/have a Django view function that looks something like this:

@cache_control(public=True, max_age=60 * 60)
def home(request, oc=None, page=1):
    ...

But, that number 60 * 60 I really needed it to be different depending on the request parameters. For example, that oc=None, if that's not None I know the page's Cache-Control header can and should be different.

So I wrote this decorator:

from django.utils.cache import patch_cache_control


def variable_cache_control(**kwargs):
    """Same as django.views.decorators.cache.cache_control except this one will
    allow the `max_age` parameter be a callable.
    """

    def _cache_controller(viewfunc):
        @functools.wraps(viewfunc)
        def _cache_controlled(request, *args, **kw):
            response = viewfunc(request, *args, **kw)
            copied = kwargs
            if kwargs.get("max_age") and callable(kwargs["max_age"]):
                max_age = kwargs["max_age"](request, *args, **kw)
                # Can't re-use, have to create a shallow clone.
                copied = dict(kwargs, max_age=max_age)
            patch_cache_control(response, **copied)
            return response

        return _cache_controlled

    return _cache_controller

Now, I can do this instead:

def _best_max_age(req, oc=None, **kwargs):
    max_age = 60 * 60
    if oc:
        max_age *= 10
    return max_age

@variable_cache_control(public=True, max_age=_best_max_age)
def home(request, oc=None, page=1):
    ...

I hope it inspires.