I have developed an API using django-rest-framework.
I am using ModelSerializer to return data of a model.
models.py
class MetaTags(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(_('Title'), max_length=255, blank=True, null=True)
name = models.CharField(_('Name'), max_length=255, blank=True, null=True)
serializer.py
class MetaTagsSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = MetaTags
response
{
"meta": {
"title": null,
"name": "XYZ"
}
}
Ideally in an API response any value which is not present should not be sent in the response.
When the title
is null
I want the response to be:
{
"meta": {
"name": "XYZ"
}
}
You could try overriding the to_native function:
class MetaTagsSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = MetaTags
def to_native(self, obj):
"""
Serialize objects -> primitives.
"""
ret = self._dict_class()
ret.fields = self._dict_class()
for field_name, field in self.fields.items():
if field.read_only and obj is None:
continue
field.initialize(parent=self, field_name=field_name)
key = self.get_field_key(field_name)
value = field.field_to_native(obj, field_name)
# Continue if value is None so that it does not get serialized.
if value is None:
continue
method = getattr(self, 'transform_%s' % field_name, None)
if callable(method):
value = method(obj, value)
if not getattr(field, 'write_only', False):
ret[key] = value
ret.fields[key] = self.augment_field(field, field_name, key, value)
return ret
I basically copied the base to_native function from serializers.BaseSerializer
and added a check for the value.
UPDATE:
As for DRF 3.0, to_native()
was renamed to to_representation()
and its implementation was changed a little. Here's the code for DRF 3.0 which ignores null and empty string values:
def to_representation(self, instance):
"""
Object instance -> Dict of primitive datatypes.
"""
ret = OrderedDict()
fields = self._readable_fields
for field in fields:
try:
attribute = field.get_attribute(instance)
except SkipField:
continue
# KEY IS HERE:
if attribute in [None, '']:
continue
# We skip `to_representation` for `None` values so that fields do
# not have to explicitly deal with that case.
#
# For related fields with `use_pk_only_optimization` we need to
# resolve the pk value.
check_for_none = attribute.pk if isinstance(attribute, PKOnlyObject) else attribute
if check_for_none is None:
ret[field.field_name] = None
else:
ret[field.field_name] = field.to_representation(attribute)
return ret
The answer from CubeRZ didn't work for me, using DRF 3.0.5. I think the method to_native has been removed and is now replaced by to_representation, defined in Serializer instead of BaseSerializer.
I used the class below with DRF 3.0.5, which is a copy of the method from Serializer with a slight modification.
from collections import OrderedDict
from rest_framework import serializers
from rest_framework.fields import SkipField
class NonNullSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
def to_representation(self, instance):
"""
Object instance -> Dict of primitive datatypes.
"""
ret = OrderedDict()
fields = [field for field in self.fields.values() if not field.write_only]
for field in fields:
try:
attribute = field.get_attribute(instance)
except SkipField:
continue
if attribute is not None:
represenation = field.to_representation(attribute)
if represenation is None:
# Do not seralize empty objects
continue
if isinstance(represenation, list) and not represenation:
# Do not serialize empty lists
continue
ret[field.field_name] = represenation
return ret
EDIT incorporated code from comments
I faced a similar problem and solved it as follows:
class MetaTagsSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = MetaTags
def to_representation(self, instance):
ret = super(MetaTagsSerializer, self).to_representation(instance)
# Here we filter the null values and creates a new dictionary
# We use OrderedDict like in original method
ret = OrderedDict(list(filter(lambda x: x[1], ret.items())))
return ret
Or if you want to filter only empty fields you can replace the lambda function by the following:
lambda x: x[1] is not None
I found this solution to be the simplest.
from collections import OrderedDict
from rest_framework import serializers
class NonNullModelSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
def to_representation(self, instance):
result = super(NonNullModelSerializer, self).to_representation(instance)
return OrderedDict([(key, result[key]) for key in result if result[key] is not None])