Situation
While working with validation in the Django REST Framework's ModelSerializer
, I have noticed that the Meta.model
fields are always validated, even when it does not necessarily make sense to do so. Take the following example for a User
model's serialization:
- I have an endpoint that creates a user. As such, there is a
password
field and a confirm_password
field. If the two fields do not match, the user cannot be created. Likewise, if the requested username
already exists, the user cannot be created.
- The user POSTs improper values for each of the fields mentioned above
- An implementation of
validate
has been made in the serializer (see below), catching the non-matching password
and confirm_password
fields
Implementation of validate
:
def validate(self, data):
if data['password'] != data.pop('confirm_password'):
raise serializers.ValidationError("Passwords do not match")
return data
Problem
Even when the ValidationError
is raised by validate
, the ModelSerializer
still queries the database to check to see if the username
is already in use. This is evident in the error-list that gets returned from the endpoint; both the model and non-field errors are present.
Consequently, I would like to know how to prevent model validation until after non-field validation has finished, saving me a call to my database.
Attempt at solution
I have been trying to go through the DRF's source to figure out where this is happening, but I have been unsuccessful in locating what I need to override in order to get this to work.
Since most likely your username
field has unique=True
set, Django REST Framework automatically adds a validator that checks to make sure the new username is unique. You can actually confirm this by doing repr(serializer())
, which will show you all of the automatically generated fields, which includes the validators.
Validation is run in a specific, undocumented order
- Field deserialization called (
serializer.to_internal_value
and field.run_validators
)
serializer.validate_[field]
is called for each field
- Serializer-level validators are called (
serializer.run_validation
followed by serializer.run_validators
)
serializer.validate
is called
So the problem that you are seeing is that the field-level validation is called before your serializer-level validation. While I wouldn't recommend it, you can remove the field-level validator by setting extra_kwargs
in your serilalizer's meta.
class Meta:
extra_kwargs = {
"username": {
"validators": [],
},
}
You will need to re-implement the unique
check in your own validation though, along with any additional validators that have been automatically generated.
I don't believe the above solutions work any more. In my case, my model has fields 'first_name' and 'last_name', but the API will only receive 'name'.
Setting 'extra_kwargs' and 'validators' in the Meta class seems to have no effect, first_name and last_name are allways deemed required, and validators are always called. I can't overload the first_name/last_name character fields with
anotherrepfor_first_name = serializers.CharField(source=first_name, required=False)
as the names make sense. After many hours of frustration, I found the only way I could override the validators with a ModelSerializer instance was to override the class initializer as follows (forgive the incorrect indentation):
class ContactSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
name = serializers.CharField(required=True)
class Meta:
model = Contact
fields = [ 'name', 'first_name', 'last_name', 'email', 'phone', 'question' ]
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
self.fields['first_name'] = serializers.CharField(required=False, allow_null=True, allow_blank=True)
self.fields['last_name'] = serializers.CharField(required=False, allow_null=True, allow_blank=True)
return super(ContactSerializer, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
def create(self, validated_data):
return Contact.objects.create()
def validate(self, data):
"""
Remove name after getting first_name, last_name
"""
missing = []
for k in ['name', 'email', 'question']:
if k not in self.fields:
missing.append(k)
if len(missing):
raise serializers.ValidationError("Ooops! The following fields are required: %s" % ','.join(missing))
from nameparser import HumanName
names = HumanName(data['name'])
names.capitalize()
data['last_name'] = names.last
if re.search(r'\w+', names.middle):
data['first_name'] = ' '.join([names.first, names.middle])
else:
data['first_name'] = names.first
del(data['name'])
return data
Now the doc says that allowing blank and null with character fields is a no no, but this is a serializer, not a model, and as the API gets called by all kinds of cowboys, I need to cover my bases.