Form handling with class-based views ==================================== Form processing generally has 3 paths: * Initial GET (blank or prepopulated form) * POST with invalid data (typically redisplay form with errors) * POST with valid data (process the data and typically redirect) Implementing this yourself often results in a lot of repeated boilerplate code (see :ref:`Using a form in a view`). To help avoid this, Django provides a collection of generic class-based views for form processing. Basic Forms ----------- Given a simple contact form:: # forms.py from django import forms class ContactForm(forms.Form): name = forms.CharField() message = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea) def send_email(self): # send email using the self.cleaned_data dictionary pass The view can be constructed using a ``FormView``:: # views.py from myapp.forms import ContactForm from django.views.generic.edit import FormView class ContactView(FormView): template_name = 'contact.html' form_class = ContactForm success_url = '/thanks/' def form_valid(self, form): # This method is called when valid form data has been POSTed. # It should return an HttpResponse. form.send_email() return super(ContactView, self).form_valid(form) Notes: * FormView inherits :class:`~django.views.generic.base.TemplateResponseMixin` so :attr:`~django.views.generic.base.TemplateResponseMixin.template_name` can be used here. * The default implementation for :meth:`~django.views.generic.edit.FormMixin.form_valid` simply redirects to the :attr:`~django.views.generic.edit.FormMixin.success_url`. Model Forms ----------- Generic views really shine when working with models. These generic views will automatically create a :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm`, so long as they can work out which model class to use: * If the :attr:`~django.views.generic.edit.ModelFormMixin.model` attribute is given, that model class will be used. * If :meth:`~django.views.generic.detail.SingleObjectMixin.get_object()` returns an object, the class of that object will be used. * If a :attr:`~django.views.generic.detail.SingleObjectMixin.queryset` is given, the model for that queryset will be used. Model form views provide a :meth:`~django.views.generic.edit.ModelFormMixin.form_valid()` implementation that saves the model automatically. You can override this if you have any special requirements; see below for examples. You don't even need to provide a ``success_url`` for :class:`~django.views.generic.edit.CreateView` or :class:`~django.views.generic.edit.UpdateView` - they will use :meth:`~django.db.models.Model.get_absolute_url()` on the model object if available. If you want to use a custom :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm` (for instance to add extra validation) simply set :attr:`~django.views.generic.edit.FormMixin.form_class` on your view. .. note:: When specifying a custom form class, you must still specify the model, even though the :attr:`~django.views.generic.edit.FormMixin.form_class` may be a :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm`. First we need to add :meth:`~django.db.models.Model.get_absolute_url()` to our ``Author`` class: .. code-block:: python # models.py from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse from django.db import models class Author(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=200) def get_absolute_url(self): return reverse('author-detail', kwargs={'pk': self.pk}) Then we can use :class:`CreateView` and friends to do the actual work. Notice how we're just configuring the generic class-based views here; we don't have to write any logic ourselves:: # views.py from django.views.generic.edit import CreateView, UpdateView, DeleteView from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse_lazy from myapp.models import Author class AuthorCreate(CreateView): model = Author fields = ['name'] class AuthorUpdate(UpdateView): model = Author fields = ['name'] class AuthorDelete(DeleteView): model = Author success_url = reverse_lazy('author-list') .. note:: We have to use :func:`~django.core.urlresolvers.reverse_lazy` here, not just ``reverse`` as the urls are not loaded when the file is imported. .. versionchanged:: 1.6 In Django 1.6, the ``fields`` attribute was added, which works the same way as the ``fields`` attribute on the inner ``Meta`` class on :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm`. Omitting the fields attribute will work as previously, but is deprecated and this attribute will be required from 1.8 (unless you define the form class in another way). Finally, we hook these new views into the URLconf:: # urls.py from django.conf.urls import patterns, url from myapp.views import AuthorCreate, AuthorUpdate, AuthorDelete urlpatterns = patterns('', # ... url(r'author/add/$', AuthorCreate.as_view(), name='author_add'), url(r'author/(?P\d+)/$', AuthorUpdate.as_view(), name='author_update'), url(r'author/(?P\d+)/delete/$', AuthorDelete.as_view(), name='author_delete'), ) .. note:: These views inherit :class:`~django.views.generic.detail.SingleObjectTemplateResponseMixin` which uses :attr:`~django.views.generic.detail.SingleObjectTemplateResponseMixin.template_name_suffix` to construct the :attr:`~django.views.generic.base.TemplateResponseMixin.template_name` based on the model. In this example: * :class:`CreateView` and :class:`UpdateView` use ``myapp/author_form.html`` * :class:`DeleteView` uses ``myapp/author_confirm_delete.html`` If you wish to have separate templates for :class:`CreateView` and :class:`UpdateView`, you can set either :attr:`~django.views.generic.base.TemplateResponseMixin.template_name` or :attr:`~django.views.generic.detail.SingleObjectTemplateResponseMixin.template_name_suffix` on your view class. Models and request.user ----------------------- To track the user that created an object using a :class:`CreateView`, you can use a custom :class:`~django.forms.ModelForm` to do this. First, add the foreign key relation to the model:: # models.py from django.contrib.auth import User from django.db import models class Author(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=200) created_by = models.ForeignKey(User) # ... In the view, ensure that you exclude ``created_by`` in the list of fields to edit, and override :meth:`~django.views.generic.edit.ModelFormMixin.form_valid()` to add the user:: # views.py from django.views.generic.edit import CreateView from myapp.models import Author class AuthorCreate(CreateView): model = Author fields = ['name'] def form_valid(self, form): form.instance.created_by = self.request.user return super(AuthorCreate, self).form_valid(form) Note that you'll need to :ref:`decorate this view` using :func:`~django.contrib.auth.decorators.login_required`, or alternatively handle unauthorized users in the :meth:`~django.views.generic.edit.ModelFormMixin.form_valid()`. AJAX example ------------ Here is a simple example showing how you might go about implementing a form that works for AJAX requests as well as 'normal' form POSTs:: import json from django.http import HttpResponse from django.views.generic.edit import CreateView class AjaxableResponseMixin(object): """ Mixin to add AJAX support to a form. Must be used with an object-based FormView (e.g. CreateView) """ def render_to_json_response(self, context, **response_kwargs): data = json.dumps(context) response_kwargs['content_type'] = 'application/json' return HttpResponse(data, **response_kwargs) def form_invalid(self, form): response = super(AjaxableResponseMixin, self).form_invalid(form) if self.request.is_ajax(): return self.render_to_json_response(form.errors, status=400) else: return response def form_valid(self, form): # We make sure to call the parent's form_valid() method because # it might do some processing (in the case of CreateView, it will # call form.save() for example). response = super(AjaxableResponseMixin, self).form_valid(form) if self.request.is_ajax(): data = { 'pk': self.object.pk, } return self.render_to_json_response(data) else: return response class AuthorCreate(AjaxableResponseMixin, CreateView): model = Author