Make view for search inside Django web app with a query string and return template with pagination options.

models.py

from __future__ import unicode_literals
from django.db import models

from autoslug import AutoSlugField
from ckeditor.fields import RichTextField
from django.template.defaultfilters import slugify

class Post(models.Model):
	title = models.CharField(max_length=75)
	body = RichTextField('body')
	post_status = models.CharField(max_length=11)
	created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
	updated_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
	
	slug = AutoSlugField(populate_from='title', unique_with='created_at', max_length=100, always_update=True, unique=True)

	@models.permalink
	def get_absolute_url(self):
		return 'article:post', (self.slug,)


	def __str__(self):
		return self.title

search_engine.py

import re

from django.db.models import Q

def normalize_query(query_string, findterms=re.compile(r'"([^"]+)"|(\S+)').findall, normspace=re.compile(r'\s{2,}').sub):
	'''
	Splits the query string in invidual keywords, getting rid of unecessary spaces
	and grouping quoted words together.
	Example:

	>>> normalize_query('  some random  words "with   quotes  " and   spaces')
	['some', 'random', 'words', 'with quotes', 'and', 'spaces']

	'''
	return [normspace(' ', (t[0] or t[1]).strip()) for t in findterms(query_string)] 


def get_query(query_string, search_fields):
	''' 
	Returns a query, that is a combination of Q objects. That combination aims to search keywords within a model by testing the given search fields.

	'''
	query = None # Query to search for every search term        
	terms = normalize_query(query_string)
	for term in terms:
		or_query = None # Query to search for a given term in each field
		for field_name in search_fields:
			q = Q(**{"%s__icontains" % field_name: term})
			if or_query is None:
				or_query = q
			else:
				or_query = or_query | q
		if query is None:
			query = or_query
		else:
			query = query & or_query
	return query

urls.py

# urls.py
from django.conf.urls import include, url
from posts import views as posts_views

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^search/(?P<phrase>.*)$', posts_views.search, name="search"),
    url(r"^article/(?P<slug>.*)$", posts_views.article, name="article"),
]

views.py

from django.shortcuts import render, get_object_or_404
from django.db.models import Q
from posts.models import Post

# paginator django
from django.core.paginator import Paginator, EmptyPage, PageNotAnInteger

# Use of lib
from helpers.search_engine import get_query

def search(request, phrase):

	query_string = ''
	found_posts = None
	posts = None
	if ('q' in request.GET) and request.GET['q'].strip():
		query_string = request.GET['q']
		entry_query = get_query(query_string, ['title', 'body',])
		found_posts = Post.objects.filter(entry_query,post_status=2).order_by('-created_at')[:50]

		paginator = Paginator(found_posts, 8)

		page = request.GET.get('page')
		try:
			posts = paginator.page(page)
		except PageNotAnInteger:
			# If page is not an integer, deliver first page.
			posts = paginator.page(1)
		except EmptyPage:
			# If page is out of range (e.g. 9999), deliver last page of results.
			posts = paginator.page(paginator.num_pages)
	
	return render(request, 'app/results.html',{
		'query': query_string,
		'posts': posts,
		'query_string': query_string,
	})