Source: 📖 Test Driven Development with Python ch13 p233

Django's reverse function

The reverse() function is used to retrieve the URL pattern that pertains to a particular URL name. Suppose you have defined the following URL in urls.py:

url('/foo/', some_view, name='url_name')

The name attribute 'url_name' can be used by both templates (such as using the name instead of hardcoding the URL as a href attribute) and by the reverse() function. When the reverse() function is called with url_name as its argument, the URL '/foo/' will be returned.This can be used in views.py to redirect the user:

# views.py
from django.urls import reverse
from django.shortcuts import redirect

def some_view(request):
	...
	

def some_other_view(request):
	...
	return redirect(reverse('url_name'))	# Redirects to /foo/

In short, it does the reverse of what Django normally does with urls.py—rather than taking a URL and selecting a view, it can go from a view back to a URL.