I have started to play with the Django REST framework. What I am trying to do is to POST a request with some JSON, create a Django Model object out of it, and use the object without saving it. My Django model is called SearchRequest. What I have is:
@api_view(['POST'])
def post_calculation(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
#JSON to serializer object
serializer = SearchRequestSerializer(data=request.data)
if (serializer.is_valid() == False):
return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)
mySearchRequestObject = serializer.save()
This does create a SearchRequest object, however saves it into the database right away. I would need it without saving.
Add this method to your SearchRequestSerializer
class
def create(self):
return SearchRequest(**self.validated_data)
And call it in function post_calculation
instead of save
, like so:
mySearchRequestObject = serializer.create()
If you're using a Generic View or using mixins.CreateModelMixin
directly in your view, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to get access to the object in the perform_create
method. You can use Moses Koledoye's idea to create the object without saving:
def perform_create(self, serializer):
# Create an instance WITHOUT saving
instance = self.model(**serializer.validated_data)
# ... do more stuff with the instance
# ...
# THEN, if you need to save the instance later
instance.save()
This is opposed to having the line instance = serializer.save()
in this perform_create
method which gives you access to the instance but requires you to save it, which could be bad a few ways, such as
- you need access to the model's methods before you can create the instance
- you need the instance to exist to access to manipulate some of its data, so you have to save it twice