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.FormView.form_valid` simply redirects to the :attr:`success_url` Model Forms ----------- Generic views really shine when working with models. These generic views will automatically create a :class:`ModelForm`, so long as they can work out which model class to use: * If the :attr:`model` attribute is given, that model class will be used * If :meth:`get_object()` returns an object, the class of that object will be used * If a :attr:`queryset` is given, the model for that queryset will be used Model form views provide a :meth:`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 attr:`success_url` for :class:`~django.views.generic.edit.CreateView` or :class:`~django.views.generic.edit.UpdateView` - they will use :meth:`get_absolute_url()` on the model object if available. If you want to use a custom :class:`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:`form_class` may be a :class:`ModelForm`. First we need to add :meth:`get_absolute_url()` to our :class:`Author` class: .. code-block:: python # models.py from django import models from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse 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 class AuthorUpdate(UpdateView): model = Author 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. 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_prefix` 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:1UpdateView`, you can set either :attr:`template_name` or :attr:`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:`ModelForm` to do this. First, add the foreign key relation to the model:: # models.py from django import models from django.contrib.auth import User class Author(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=200) created_by = models.ForeignKey(User) # ... Create a custom :class:`ModelForm` in order to exclude the ``created_by`` field and prevent the user from editing it: .. code-block:: python # forms.py from django import forms from myapp.models import Author class AuthorForm(forms.ModelForm): class Meta: model = Author exclude = ('created_by',) In the view, use the custom :attr:`form_class` and override :meth:`form_valid()` to add the user:: # views.py from django.views.generic.edit import CreateView from myapp.models import Author from myapp.forms import AuthorForm class AuthorCreate(CreateView): form_class = AuthorForm model = Author 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 unauthorised users in the :meth:`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 from django.views.generic.detail import SingleObjectTemplateResponseMixin 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): if self.request.is_ajax(): return self.render_to_json_response(form.errors, status=400) else: return super(AjaxableResponseMixin, self).form_invalid(form) def form_valid(self, form): if self.request.is_ajax(): data = { 'pk': form.instance.pk, } return self.render_to_json_response(data) else: return super(AjaxableResponseMixin, self).form_valid(form) class AuthorCreate(AjaxableResponseMixin, CreateView): model = Author