@api_view defaults to allowing GET

2 files changed, 14 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/docs/api-guide/views.md b/docs/api-guide/views.md
index 31c62682..291fe737 100644
--- a/docs/api-guide/views.md
+++ b/docs/api-guide/views.md
@@ -127,19 +127,26 @@ REST framework also allows you to work with regular function based views.  It pr
 
 ## @api_view()
 
-**Signature:** `@api_view(http_method_names)`
+**Signature:** `@api_view(http_method_names=['GET'])`
 
-The core of this functionality is the `api_view` decorator, which takes a list of HTTP methods that your view should respond to.  For example, this is how you would write a very simple view that just manually returns some data:
+The core of this functionality is the `api_view` decorator, which takes a list of HTTP methods that your view should respond to. For example, this is how you would write a very simple view that just manually returns some data:
 
     from rest_framework.decorators import api_view
 
-    @api_view(['GET'])
+    @api_view()
     def hello_world(request):
         return Response({"message": "Hello, world!"})
 
-
 This view will use the default renderers, parsers, authentication classes etc specified in the [settings].
 
+By default only `GET` methods will be accepted. Other methods will respond with "405 Method Not Allowed". To alter this behavior, specify which methods the view allows, like so:
+
+    @api_view(['GET', 'POST'])
+    def hello_world(request):
+        if request.method == 'POST':
+            return Response({"message": "Got some data!", "data": request.data})
+        return Response({"message": "Hello, world!"})
+
 ## API policy decorators
 
 To override the default settings, REST framework provides a set of additional decorators which can be added to your views.  These must come *after* (below) the `@api_view` decorator.  For example, to create a view that uses a [throttle][throttling] to ensure it can only be called once per day by a particular user, use the `@throttle_classes` decorator, passing a list of throttle classes:
diff --git a/rest_framework/decorators.py b/rest_framework/decorators.py
index d28d6e22..325435b3 100644
--- a/rest_framework/decorators.py
+++ b/rest_framework/decorators.py
@@ -12,12 +12,14 @@ from rest_framework.views import APIView
 import types
 
 
-def api_view(http_method_names):
+def api_view(http_method_names=None):
 
     """
     Decorator that converts a function-based view into an APIView subclass.
     Takes a list of allowed methods for the view as an argument.
     """
+    if http_method_names is None:
+        http_method_names = ['GET']
 
     def decorator(func):