Form handling with class-based views | Django documentation (2024)

Basic forms¶

Given a contact form:

from django import formsclass 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:

from myapp.forms import ContactFormfrom django.views.generic.edit import FormViewclass ContactFormView(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().form_valid(form)

Notes:

• FormView inheritsTemplateResponseMixin sotemplate_namecan be used here.
• The default implementation forform_valid() simplyredirects to the success_url.

Model forms¶

Generic views really shine when working with models. These genericviews will automatically create a ModelForm, so long asthey can work out which model class to use:

• If the model attribute isgiven, that model class will be used.
• If get_object()returns an object, the class of that object will be used.
• If a queryset isgiven, the model for that queryset will be used.

Model form views provide aform_valid() implementationthat saves the model automatically. You can override this if you have anyspecial requirements; see below for examples.

You don’t even need to provide a success_url forCreateView orUpdateView - they will useget_absolute_url() on the model object if available.

If you want to use a custom ModelForm (for instance toadd extra validation), setform_class on your view.

First we need to add get_absolute_url() to ourAuthor class:

from django.db import modelsfrom django.urls import reverseclass 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 CreateView and friends to do the actualwork. Notice how we’re just configuring the generic class-based viewshere; we don’t have to write any logic ourselves:

from django.urls import reverse_lazyfrom django.views.generic.edit import CreateView, DeleteView, UpdateViewfrom myapp.models import Authorclass AuthorCreateView(CreateView): model = Author fields = ["name"]class AuthorUpdateView(UpdateView): model = Author fields = ["name"]class AuthorDeleteView(DeleteView): model = Author success_url = reverse_lazy("author-list")

The fields attribute works the same way as the fields attribute on theinner Meta class on ModelForm. Unless you define theform class in another way, the attribute is required and the view will raisean ImproperlyConfigured exception if it’s not.

If you specify both the fieldsand form_class attributes, anImproperlyConfigured exception will be raised.

Finally, we hook these new views into the URLconf:

from django.urls import pathfrom myapp.views import AuthorCreateView, AuthorDeleteView, AuthorUpdateViewurlpatterns = [ # ... path("author/add/", AuthorCreateView.as_view(), name="author-add"), path("author/<int:pk>/", AuthorUpdateView.as_view(), name="author-update"), path("author/<int:pk>/delete/", AuthorDeleteView.as_view(), name="author-delete"),]

Models and request.user¶

To track the user that created an object using a CreateView,you can use a custom ModelForm to do this. First, addthe foreign key relation to the model:

from django.contrib.auth.models import Userfrom django.db import modelsclass Author(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=200) created_by = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE) # ...

In the view, ensure that you don’t include created_by in the list of fieldsto edit, and overrideform_valid() to add the user:

from django.contrib.auth.mixins import LoginRequiredMixinfrom django.views.generic.edit import CreateViewfrom myapp.models import Authorclass AuthorCreateView(LoginRequiredMixin, CreateView): model = Author fields = ["name"] def form_valid(self, form): form.instance.created_by = self.request.user return super().form_valid(form)

LoginRequiredMixin prevents users whoaren’t logged in from accessing the form. If you omit that, you’ll need tohandle unauthorized users in form_valid().

Content negotiation example¶

Here is an example showing how you might go about implementing a form thatworks with an API-based workflow as well as ‘normal’ form POSTs:

from django.http import JsonResponsefrom django.views.generic.edit import CreateViewfrom myapp.models import Authorclass JsonableResponseMixin: """ Mixin to add JSON support to a form. Must be used with an object-based FormView (e.g. CreateView) """ def form_invalid(self, form): response = super().form_invalid(form) if self.request.accepts("text/html"): return response else: return JsonResponse(form.errors, status=400) 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().form_valid(form) if self.request.accepts("text/html"): return response else: data = { "pk": self.object.pk, } return JsonResponse(data)class AuthorCreateView(JsonableResponseMixin, CreateView): model = Author fields = ["name"]