django-rest-framework – how to serialize nested objects?

Question

I am trying to create an api endpoint that pulls all the FeaturedProvider and Testimonial objects from the database, serialize it and return it as a new serialized object HomepageContentSerializer

I've tried multiple ways but I'm getting empty {} when I try to hit the endpoint. I'm not sure where to initialize or pass the FeaturedProvider and Testimonial objects to the HomepageContentSerializer to be serialized

serializers.py

class FeaturedProviderSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = FeaturedProvider
        fields = '__all__'


class TestimonialSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Testimonial
        fields = '__all__'


class HomepageContentSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
    providers = FeaturedProviderSerializer(many=True, read_only=True)
    testimonials = TestimonialSerializer(many=True, read_only=True)

views.py

class HomepageContent(APIView):
    renderer_classes = [JSONRenderer]
    def get(self, request):
        content = HomepageContentSerializer().data
        return Response(content)

My goal is to get this representation back

{
    "providers": [
        { ... },
        { ... },
        { ... },
    ],
    "testimonials": [
        { ... },
        { ... },
        { ... },
    ],
}

You're not passing any data to the serilaizer so of course you get an empty JSON response — Ken4scholars
– Ken4scholars, Commented Jun 3, 2020 at 15:07

Ken4scholars · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-03 19:02:16Z

3

You're not passing any data to the serializer so that is why you are getting an empty JSON response. The serializer does not fetch data from DB on its own. The data gets passed to it. You will also need a data structure that matches the HomepageContentSerializer.

You can use namedtuples.

from collections import namedtuple

HomePageContent = namedtuple('HomePageContent', ['providers', 'testimonials'])

class HomepageContent(APIView):
    renderer_classes = [JSONRenderer]
    def get(self, request):
        providers = Provider.objects.all()
        testimonials = Testimonial.objects.all()
        home_page_data = HomePageContent(providers=providers, testimonials=testimonials)
        content = HomepageContentSerializer(home_page_data).data
        return Response(content)

edited Jun 3, 2020 at 19:02

answered Jun 3, 2020 at 15:14

Ken4scholars

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2 Comments

Youssef Hammoud Over a year ago

Perfect, this worked. I wasn't sure how to pass the querysets to HomepageContentSerializer

Ken4scholars Over a year ago

Glad it helped.

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