id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
6568	reverse URL resolution triggers import errors on views	Kenneth Arnold	nobody	"'''Short version''': urlresolvers {{{reverse()}}} should check named URLs before trying to import views.

I've gotten bitten by this enough times to convince me it's a bug, and now looking at urlresolvers I'm convinced it's easily fixable.

I use the {{{url}}} template tag and the {{{reverse}}} function all over the place for DRY sake. All of my URLs are named, so there's no reason to look in the views. Not too infrequently I'll make a typo in a view file, causing an import error. That shouldn't bother things when I go to somewhere else on the site that doesn't use that view file. And normally things go just fine... until a page hits a {{{url}}} tag or calls {{{reverse}}}. Then I get an !ImportError, because it tried to import the view with a syntax error. The debug page insists that the problem was in the url tag, though, and I have to dig around (usually drop to a shell and try importing each of my views) to find the real cause of the problem.

A simple fix -- and slight optimization -- is to check for {{{lookup_view}}} in {{{reverse_dict}}} before trying to {{{get_callable}}}. I'll write up a patch on Monday if no one else gets to it first.
"		closed	Core (Other)	dev		wontfix	reverse url view import error		Design decision needed	0	0	0	0	0	0