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Django Rest Framework failing to patch Serializer(many=True).data in view test

I'm unit testing a view and I am attempting to patch the .data property on my serializer but it looks like it behaves differently when the many=True kwarg is passed to the serializer constructor and thus not properly patching. Here is a generalized example of my code.
# myapp/serializers.py
class MySerializer(serializers.Serializer):
some_field = serializers.CharField()
# myapp/views.py
class MyView(View):
def get(self, request):
# ..stuff
some_data = []
serializer = MySerializer(some_data, many=True)
print(type(serializer)) # <class 'rest_framework.serializers.ListSerializer'>
print(type(serializer.data)) # <class 'rest_framework.utils.serializer_helpers.ReturnList'>
return Response({"data": seralizer.data, status=200})
# in tests
def test_view_case_one(mocker):
# setup other mocks
serialized_data = mocker.patch("myapp.views.MySerializer.data", new_callable=mocker.PropertyMock)
# invoke view
response = MyView().get(fake_request)
# run assertions
serialized_data.assert_called_once() # this says it's never called

Earlier I had ran into issues attempting to patch rest_framework.serializers.ListSerializer.data. Must of been a typo. Reattempted and was able to successfully patch. Given the case many=True recreates the serializer as a ListSerializer I simply needed to patch the property on the underlying class.
serialized_data = mocker.patch(
"rest_framework.serializers.ListSerializer.data",
new_callable=mocker.PropertyMock
)
Edit: A more in depth answer
When many=True is used the __new__ method on BaseSerializer grabs you class and constructs a ListSerializer from it and that is why my object showed up as a ListSerializer. Since we are actually receiving a ListSerializer instead of our defined class the patch is not applied to ListSerializer.data method. The relevant parts of the source code for BaseSerializer is below
class BaseSerializer(Field):
def __new__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
# We override this method in order to automagically create
# `ListSerializer` classes instead when `many=True` is set.
if kwargs.pop('many', False):
return cls.many_init(*args, **kwargs)
return super(BaseSerializer, cls).__new__(cls, *args, **kwargs)
#classmethod
def many_init(cls, *args, **kwargs):
"""
This method implements the creation of a `ListSerializer` parent
class when `many=True` is used. You can customize it if you need to
control which keyword arguments are passed to the parent, and
which are passed to the child.
Note that we're over-cautious in passing most arguments to both parent
and child classes in order to try to cover the general case. If you're
overriding this method you'll probably want something much simpler, eg:
#classmethod
def many_init(cls, *args, **kwargs):
kwargs['child'] = cls()
return CustomListSerializer(*args, **kwargs)
"""
allow_empty = kwargs.pop('allow_empty', None)
child_serializer = cls(*args, **kwargs)
list_kwargs = {
'child': child_serializer,
}
if allow_empty is not None:
list_kwargs['allow_empty'] = allow_empty
list_kwargs.update({
key: value for key, value in kwargs.items()
if key in LIST_SERIALIZER_KWARGS
})
meta = getattr(cls, 'Meta', None)
list_serializer_class = getattr(meta, 'list_serializer_class', ListSerializer)
return list_serializer_class(*args, **list_kwargs)

How to override a Model Form widget in Django?

I'm trying to override render_option method present inside Select Widget class from my forms.py file. So I have added the method with the same name inside the corresponding Model form class. But it won't work (this method fails to override). My forms.py file looks like,
class CustomSelectMultiple(Select):
allow_multiple_selected = True
def render_option(self, selected_choices, option_value, option_label):
print 'Inside custom render_option\n\n'
if option_value is None:
option_value = ''
option_value = force_text(option_value)
if option_value in selected_choices:
selected_html = mark_safe(' selected="selected"')
if not self.allow_multiple_selected:
# Only allow for a single selection.
selected_choices.remove(option_value)
else:
selected_html = ''
return format_html('<option value="{}" data-img-src="www.foo.com" {}>{}</option>',
option_value,
selected_html,
force_text(option_label))
def render_options(self, choices, selected_choices):
print 'Inside custom render_options\n\n'
print self
print choices
# Normalize to strings.
selected_choices = set(force_text(v) for v in selected_choices)
output = []
for option_value, option_label in chain(self.choices, choices):
if isinstance(option_label, (list, tuple)):
output.append(format_html('<optgroup label="{}">', force_text(option_value)))
for option in option_label:
output.append(self.render_option(selected_choices, *option))
output.append('</optgroup>')
else:
output.append(self.render_option(selected_choices, option_value, option_label))
#print output
return '\n'.join(output)
def render(self, name, value, attrs=None, choices=()):
print 'Inside custom render\n\n'
if value is None:
value = []
final_attrs = self.build_attrs(attrs, name=name)
output = [format_html('<select multiple="multiple"{}>', flatatt(final_attrs))]
options = self.render_options(choices, value)
if options:
output.append(options)
output.append('</select>')
return mark_safe('\n'.join(output))
def value_from_datadict(self, data, files, name):
if isinstance(data, MultiValueDict):
return data.getlist(name)
return data.get(name)
class GuideUpdateForm(ModelForm):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(GuideUpdateForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.fields['date_modified'].widget = HiddenInput()
self.fields['point_of_interest'].widget = CustomSelectMultiple()
class Meta:
fields = ('name', 'image', 'point_of_interest', 'date_modified', )
model = Guide
I also tried changing my Meta class like,
class Meta:
fields = ('name', 'image', 'point_of_interest', 'date_modified', )
model = Guide
widgets = {
'point_of_interest': SelectMultiple(attrs={'data-img-src': 'www.foo.com'}),
}
But it add's the attribute data-img-src only to the select tag but not to all the option tags present inside the select tag.
Note that SelectMultiple class invokes the renderoptions method of Select class which further invokes the renderoption method which don't have attrs=None keyword argument.

Judging off your own solution it looks like you may have been looking for a ModelChoiceField
self.fields['point_of_interest'] = forms.ModelChoiceField(widget=CustomSelectMultiple(),
queryset=poi.objects.all())
The queryset parameter consists of "A QuerySet of model objects from which the choices for the field will be derived, and which will be used to validate the user’s selection."
does it create a list of tuples of ids, names? Because I want the option tag to look like option value="id">name</option>
I'm pretty sure the default is id, __str__ where __str__ is the string representation of the model. If you wanted this to be specific to the name then you could override this field and set label_from_instance
class MyModelChoiceField(ModelChoiceField):
def label_from_instance(self, obj):
return obj.name

I managed to solve this problem by passing db values to choices kwargs.
from models import poi
class GuideUpdateForm(ModelForm):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(GuideUpdateForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.fields['date_modified'].widget = HiddenInput()
self.fields['point_of_interest'] = forms.ChoiceField(widget=CustomSelectMultiple(), choices=[(i.id,i.name) for i in poi.objects.all()])

django render initial values in form with ModelMultipleChoiceField and CheckboxSelectMultiple() widget

I have the following form:
class TutorForm(SignupForm):
subjects = forms.ModelMultipleChoiceField(queryset=Subject.objects.all(),
widget=forms.CheckboxSelectMultiple())
I have a child form called TutorUpdateFormthat inherits from TutorForm and it sets initial values in init method.
self.fields['subjects'].initial = current_user.subjects.all()
In my template however the values are not checked (in views the values are there, so setting initial values works). How can I enforce checked inputs in the template?
EDIT (init code)
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
current_user = None
try:
current_user = kwargs.pop('user')
except Exception:
pass
super(TutorUpdateForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
for field in _update_exclude:
self.fields.pop(field)
if current_user:
self.fields['subjects'].initial = current_user.subjects.all()

You should pass the initial values into the call to super, you can also set a default value for dict.pop rather than using try/except
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
current_user = kwargs.pop('user', None)
initial = kwargs.get('initial', {})
if current_user:
initial.update({'subjects': current_user.subjects.all()})
kwargs['initial'] = initial
super(TutorUpdateForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
for field in _update_exclude:
self.fields.pop(field)
Here is a link to the documentation on dynamic initial values for forms

Get parameters of object in metaclass of this object

My problem is a python/django mix. I have a form model that will display some fields. Basing on some parameter of this model, the data sent to metaclass creating this object should differ. But how can I reach this parameter when inside the body of Meta ? Should I use some global var instead of object parameter (as it is introduced only to store value temporarily) ?
class MyForm(forms.ModelForm):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(MyForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
instance = kwargs.get("instance")
self.type = None
try:
type = self.instance.template_id
except:
pass
class Meta:
model = ContentBase
fields = ["title", "slug", "description", "text", "price",]
#here I need to have the value of 'type'
if type != 2:
try:
fields.remove("price")
except:
pass

You can't do anything dynamic within Meta. That's not what it's for.
Why can't you do it all within __init__? You can modify self.fields from there.

Just as Daniel proposed, I moved the whole thing to __init__ :
type = None
try:
type = self.instance.template_id
except:
pass
if type != 2:
self.fields.pop("price")
else:

Serialize the #property methods in a Python class

Is there a way to have any #property definitions passed through to a json serializer when serializing a Django model class?
example:
class FooBar(object.Model)
name = models.CharField(...)
#property
def foo(self):
return "My name is %s" %self.name
Want to serialize to:
[{
'name' : 'Test User',
'foo' : 'My name is Test User',
},]

You can extend Django's serializers without /too/ much work. Here's a custom serializer that takes a queryset and a list of attributes (fields or not), and returns JSON.
from StringIO import StringIO
from django.core.serializers.json import Serializer
class MySerializer(Serializer):
def serialize(self, queryset, list_of_attributes, **options):
self.options = options
self.stream = options.get("stream", StringIO())
self.start_serialization()
for obj in queryset:
self.start_object(obj)
for field in list_of_attributes:
self.handle_field(obj, field)
self.end_object(obj)
self.end_serialization()
return self.getvalue()
def handle_field(self, obj, field):
self._current[field] = getattr(obj, field)
Usage:
>>> MySerializer().serialize(MyModel.objects.all(), ["field1", "property2", ...])
Of course, this is probably more work than just writing your own simpler JSON serializer, but maybe not more work than your own XML serializer (you'd have to redefine "handle_field" to match the XML case in addition to changing the base class to do that).

The solution worked well that is proposed by M. Rafay Aleem and Wtower, but it's duplicated lot of code. Here is an improvment:
from django.core.serializers.base import Serializer as BaseSerializer
from django.core.serializers.python import Serializer as PythonSerializer
from django.core.serializers.json import Serializer as JsonSerializer
class ExtBaseSerializer(BaseSerializer):
def serialize_property(self, obj):
model = type(obj)
for field in self.selected_fields:
if hasattr(model, field) and type(getattr(model, field)) == property:
self.handle_prop(obj, field)
def handle_prop(self, obj, field):
self._current[field] = getattr(obj, field)
def end_object(self, obj):
self.serialize_property(obj)
super(ExtBaseSerializer, self).end_object(obj)
class ExtPythonSerializer(ExtBaseSerializer, PythonSerializer):
pass
class ExtJsonSerializer(ExtPythonSerializer, JsonSerializer):
pass
How to use it:
ExtJsonSerializer().serialize(MyModel.objects.all(), fields=['field_name_1', 'property_1' ...])

This is a combination of M. Rafay Aleem and Wtowers answer and caots.
This is DRY and lets you only specify the extra props instead of all fields and props as in caots version.
from django.core.serializers.json import Serializer as JsonSerializer
from django.core.serializers.python import Serializer as PythonSerializer
from django.core.serializers.base import Serializer as BaseSerializer
class ExtBaseSerializer(BaseSerializer):
def serialize(self, queryset, **options):
self.selected_props = options.pop('props')
return super(ExtBaseSerializer, self).serialize(queryset, **options)
def serialize_property(self, obj):
model = type(obj)
for field in self.selected_props:
if hasattr(model, field) and type(getattr(model, field)) == property:
self.handle_prop(obj, field)
def handle_prop(self, obj, field):
self._current[field] = getattr(obj, field)
def end_object(self, obj):
self.serialize_property(obj)
super(ExtBaseSerializer, self).end_object(obj)
class ExtPythonSerializer(ExtBaseSerializer, PythonSerializer):
pass
class ExtJsonSerializer(ExtPythonSerializer, JsonSerializer):
pass
How to use it:
ExtJsonSerializer().serialize(MyModel.objects.all(), props=['property_1', ...])

Things have changed a bit since 2010, so the answer of #user85461 seems to no longer be working with Django 1.8 and Python 3.4. This is an updated answer with what seems to work for me.
from django.core.serializers.base import Serializer as BaseSerializer
from django.core.serializers.python import Serializer as PythonSerializer
from django.core.serializers.json import Serializer as JsonSerializer
from django.utils import six
class ExtBaseSerializer(BaseSerializer):
""" Abstract serializer class; everything is the same as Django's base except from the marked lines """
def serialize(self, queryset, **options):
self.options = options
self.stream = options.pop('stream', six.StringIO())
self.selected_fields = options.pop('fields', None)
self.selected_props = options.pop('props', None) # added this
self.use_natural_keys = options.pop('use_natural_keys', False)
self.use_natural_foreign_keys = options.pop('use_natural_foreign_keys', False)
self.use_natural_primary_keys = options.pop('use_natural_primary_keys', False)
self.start_serialization()
self.first = True
for obj in queryset:
self.start_object(obj)
concrete_model = obj._meta.concrete_model
for field in concrete_model._meta.local_fields:
if field.serialize:
if field.rel is None:
if self.selected_fields is None or field.attname in self.selected_fields:
self.handle_field(obj, field)
else:
if self.selected_fields is None or field.attname[:-3] in self.selected_fields:
self.handle_fk_field(obj, field)
for field in concrete_model._meta.many_to_many:
if field.serialize:
if self.selected_fields is None or field.attname in self.selected_fields:
self.handle_m2m_field(obj, field)
# added this loop
if self.selected_props:
for field in self.selected_props:
self.handle_prop(obj, field)
self.end_object(obj)
if self.first:
self.first = False
self.end_serialization()
return self.getvalue()
# added this function
def handle_prop(self, obj, field):
self._current[field] = getattr(obj, field)
class ExtPythonSerializer(ExtBaseSerializer, PythonSerializer):
pass
class ExtJsonSerializer(ExtPythonSerializer, JsonSerializer):
pass
Usage:
>>> ExtJsonSerializer().serialize(MyModel.objects.all(), fields=['myfield', ...], props=['myprop', ...])

You can get all of the properties of a class using some black magic:
def list_class_properties(cls):
return [k for k,v in cls.__dict__.iteritems() if type(v) is property]
For example:
>>> class Foo:
#property
def bar(self):
return "bar"
>>> list_class_properties(Foo)
['bar']
Then you can build the dictionary and serialize it from there.