[Django]-Change a field in a Django REST Framework ModelSerializer based on the request type?

There is a feature of DRF where you can dynamically change the fields on the serializer http://www.django-rest-framework.org/api-guide/serializers/#dynamically-modifying-fields

My use case: use slug field on GET so we can see nice rep of a relation, but on POST/PUT switch back to the classic primary key update. Adjust your serializer to something like this:

class FooSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    bar = serializers.SlugRelatedField(slug_field='baz', queryset=models.Bar.objects.all())

    class Meta:
        model = models.Foo
        fields = '__all__'

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(FooSerializer, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

        try:
            if self.context['request'].method in ['POST', 'PUT']:
                self.fields['bar'] = serializers.PrimaryKeyRelatedField(queryset=models.Bar.objects.all())
        except KeyError:
            pass

The KeyError is sometimes thrown on code initialisation without a request, possibly unit tests.

Enjoy and use responsibly.

You are looking for the get_serializer_class method on the ViewSet. This allows you to switch on request type for which serializer that you want to use.

from rest_framework import viewsets

class MyModelViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):

    model = MyModel
    queryset = MyModel.objects.all()

    def get_serializer_class(self):
        if self.action in ('create', 'update', 'partial_update'):
            return MySerializerWithPrimaryKeysForCreatingOrUpdating
        else:
            return MySerializerWithNestedData

I know it’s a little late, but just in case someone else needs it. There are some third party packages for drf that allow dynamic setting of included serializer fields via the request query parameters (listed in the official docs: https://www.django-rest-framework.org/api-guide/serializers/#third-party-packages).

IMO the most complete ones are:

1. https://github.com/AltSchool/dynamic-rest
2. https://github.com/rsinger86/drf-flex-fields

where (1) has more features than (2) (maybe too many, depending on what you want to do).

With (2) you can do things such as (extracted from the repo’s readme):

class CountrySerializer(FlexFieldsModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Country
        fields = ['name', 'population']


class PersonSerializer(FlexFieldsModelSerializer):
    country = serializers.PrimaryKeyRelatedField(read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = Person
        fields = ['id', 'name', 'country', 'occupation']

    expandable_fields = {
        'country': (CountrySerializer, {'source': 'country', 'fields': ['name']})
    }

The default response:

{
  "id" : 13322,
  "name" : "John Doe",
  "country" : 12,
  "occupation" : "Programmer"
}

When you do a GET /person/13322?expand=country, the response will change to:

{
  "id" : 13322,
  "name" : "John Doe",
  "country" : {
    "name" : "United States"
  },
  "occupation" : "Programmer",
}

Notice how population was ommitted from the nested country object. This is because fields was set to [‘name’] when passed to the embedded CountrySerializer.

This way you can keep your POST requests including just an id, and “expand” GET responses to include more details.

The way I ended up dealing with this problem was having another serializer for when it’s a related field.

class HumanSerializer(PersonSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = Human
        fields = PersonSerializer.Meta.fields + (
            'firstname',
            'middlename',
            'lastname',
            'sex',
            'date_of_birth',
            'balance'
        )
        read_only_fields = ('name',)


class HumanRelatedSerializer(HumanSerializer):
    def to_internal_value(self, data):
        return self.Meta.model.objects.get(id=data['id'])


class PhoneNumberSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    contact = HumanRelatedSerializer()

    class Meta:
        model = PhoneNumber
        fields = (
            'id',
            'contact',
            'phone',
            'extension'
        )

You could do something like this, but for the RelatedSerializer do:

 def to_internal_value(self, data):
     return self.Meta.model.objects.get(id=data)

Thus, when serializing, you serialize the related object, and when de-serializing, you only need the id to get the related object.