Django 1.10 added a new style of middleware with a different interface and a new setting called MIDDLWARE instead of MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES. Creating a class that supports both is easy enough with MiddlewareMixin, but that only works with Django 1.10 and above. What if you want to create middleware that can work with all versions of Django so it can be easily shared?

Writing a compatible middleware is not too hard. The trick is having a fallback for when the import fails on any earlier versions of Django. I couldn’t find a full example anywhere and it took me a few attempts to get it just right, so I thought I’d share my results to save you some time.

import os

from django.core.exceptions import MiddlewareNotUsed
from django.shortcuts import redirect

try:
    from django.utils.deprecation import MiddlewareMixin
except ImportError:
    MiddlewareMixin = object

class CompatibleMiddleware(MiddlewareMixin):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if os.getenv('DISABLE_MIDDLEWARE'):
            raise MiddlewareNotUsed('DISABLE_MIDDLEWARE is set')

        super(CompatibleMiddleware, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

    def process_request(self, request):
        if request.path == '/':
            return redirect('/hello')

    def process_response(self, request, response):
        return response

CompatibleMiddleware can now be used in both MIDDLWARE and MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES. It should also work with any version of Django so it’s easier to share.