Return QuerySet as JSON?

use values() to return a querydict, and pass that to json.dumps

values = PCT.objects.filter(code__startswith='a').values()
return HttpResponse(json.dumps(values), content_type='application/json')

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/models/querysets/#values

Most of these answers are out of date. Here's what I use:

views.py (returns HTML)

from django.shortcuts import render
from django.core import serializers

def your_view(request):
    data = serializers.serialize('json', YourModel.objects.all())
    context = {"data":data}
    return render(request, "your_view.html", context)

views.py (returns JSON)

from django.core import serializers
from django.http import HttpResponse

def your_view(request):
    data = serializers.serialize('json', YourModel.objects.all())
    return HttpResponse(data, content_type='application/json')

Simplest solution without any additional framework:

results = PCT.objects.filter(code__startswith='a').values('id', 'name')
return JsonResponse({'results': list(results)})

returns {'results': [{'id': 1, 'name': 'foo'}, ...]}

or if you only need the values:

results = PCT.objects.filter(code__startswith='a').values_list('id', 'name')
return JsonResponse({'results': list(results)})

returns {'results': [[1, 'foo'], ...]}