How to write a Serializer for array data in REST API in Django Rest Framework?

Question

I have written basic model serializers in Django where the api mimics the data model. I now have a requirement to store User Preference in database. The api contains an array.

My User Models :

class User(models.Model):
    email_id = models.EmailField(max_length=80, blank=True, primary_key=True)

class UserPreference(models.Model)
    email_id = models.ForeignKey('User')
    preference = models.CharField(maxlength=20)

An ideal json post request would look something like this

{
    email:"[email protected]"
    preference : [ 'books', 'food', 'lifestyle', 'travel']
}

I wish to save this json schema to the UserPreference model. This requires multiple inserts for preference. What will be a good serializer design for it ?

I tried

class UserPreferenceSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = UserPreference
        fields = ('email_id', 'preference')

@mariodev Thanks for suggesting. I have edited customer to User. — Abhishek
– Abhishek, Commented Apr 7, 2015 at 6:41
You should write own model for preferences and use many-to-many field from UserPreference, or ForeignKey from the preference model. — Jaakko
– Jaakko, Commented Apr 7, 2015 at 19:22
@jaakko That's the correct behaviour I believe but I have stripped down my actual large use case to the part where I'm having a problem. — Abhishek
– Abhishek, Commented Apr 9, 2015 at 2:25

Zealous System · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-08 10:29:58Z

9

you could use StringRelatedField of Django Rest Framework.

Make below changes and you will get the response in the way you want.

models.py (put related_name there)

class UserPreference(models.Model):
    email_id = models.ForeignKey(User, related_name='preference')
    preference = models.CharField(maxlength=20)

serializers.py

class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    preference = serializers.StringRelatedField(many=True)

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('email_id', 'preference')

answered Apr 8, 2015 at 10:29

Zealous System

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Jaakko · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-09 08:12:03Z

7

You could make your model like this:

class UserPreference(models.Model)
    email_id = models.ForeignKey('User')
    preference = models.ManyToManyField('Preference') #create model for preferences

Then add custom create method to your serializer:

def create(self, validated_data):
    user = self.context.get('user') #you can pass context={'user': self.request.user} in your view to the serializer
    up = UserPreference.objects.create(email_id=user)
    up.save()        
    preference = validated_data.get('preference', [])
    up.preference.add(*preference)
    up.save()
    return up

answered Apr 9, 2015 at 8:12

Jaakko

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