[Django]-Django REST Framework and FileField absolute url

Thanks, shavenwarthog. Your example and documentation reference helped enormously. My implementation is slightly different, but very close to what you posted:

from SomeProject import settings

class ProjectSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

    thumbnail_url = serializers.SerializerMethodField('get_thumbnail_url')

    def get_thumbnail_url(self, obj):
        return '%s%s' % (settings.MEDIA_URL, obj.thumbnail)

    class Meta:
        model = Project
        fields = ('id', 'url', 'name', 'thumbnail_url') 

To get the url of a file which uses FileField you can just call the url attribute of the FieldFile (this is the file instance not the field), it use the Storage class to determine the url for this file. It’s very straightforward if you are using a external storage like Amazon S3 or if your storage changes.

The get_thumbnail_url would be like this.

def get_thumbnail_url(self, obj):
    return obj.thumbnail.url

You can also use it in the template this way:

{{ current_project.thumbnail.url }}

I found it annoying to write the same code for a serialized method field.
If you have set correctly the MEDIA_ROOT to your S3 bucket URL, you can add a field to the serializer like:

class ProjectSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    logo_url = serializers.URLField(read_only=True, source='logo.url')

    class Meta:
        model = Project

logo is an ImageField in the model. it must not be nullable in order to avoid errors like ValueError: The 'img' attribute has no file associated with it.

I only use .build_absolute_uri in a serializer methodfield to return absolute urls that use other views in my API. for example, in my project there is an URL /webviews/projects/<pk> that shows, a title and a button that collects some user input (i.e. not exactly what you would do with suffixes, as it’s not a plain representation of the resource but includes some logic instead). the end point /projects/<pk>/ contains a field “webview_url” ponting there, which is generated with SerializerMethodField. it’s not media.

No need for any overrides or customizations. DRF handles it automatically. Take a look at to_representation method of FileField (source):

def to_representation(self, value):
    if not value:
        return None

    use_url = getattr(self, 'use_url', api_settings.UPLOADED_FILES_USE_URL)

    if use_url:
        if not getattr(value, 'url', None):
            # If the file has not been saved it may not have a URL.
            return None
        url = value.url
        request = self.context.get('request', None)
        if request is not None:
            return request.build_absolute_uri(url)
        return url
    return value.name

Note that it won’t work if the context of the serializer is not set properly. If you’re using ViewSets, no worries, everything is done silently but if you’re instantiating the serializer manually you have to pass in the request in the context.

context = {'request': request}
serializer = ExampleSerializer(instance, context=context)
return Response(serializer.data)

https://www.django-rest-framework.org/community/3.0-announcement/#file-fields-as-urls

Just pass the context and pass request object. if you are using @api_view

serializer = CustomerSerializer(customer, context={"request": request})

For ViewSet user get_serializer_context method

class ProjectViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
queryset = Project.objects.all()
serializer_class = ProjectSerializer

def get_serializer_context(self):
    return {'request': self.request}

Just pass this "context={'request': request}" argument where you call your model serializer class to serialize the object. You can follow the below snippet to get the complete URL field.

serialized_object = serializers.MySerializer(data, many=true, context={'request': request})

if you cannot access extra context in your serializer using Viewsets, try register your router with a basename in urls.py:

router.register('projects', ProjectViewSet, basename='project')

you can use build_absolute_uri:

def get_thumbnail_url(self, obj):
    return self.context.get('request').build_absolute_uri(obj.thumbnail.url)

Check you settings.py

media settings.

I had same error and found that:

MEDIA_URL = ‘/media/’
did the trick.

Before i only had:

MEDIA_URL = ‘media/’

In my case, override to_representation method works right.

# models.py
class DailyLove(models.Model):
    content = models.CharField(max_length=1000)
    pic = models.FileField(upload_to='upload/api/media/DailyLove/')
    date = models.DateTimeField(auto_created=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.date)

# serializers.py
class DailyLoveSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    def to_representation(self, instance):
        representation = super(DailyLoveSerializer, self).to_representation(instance)
        representation['pic_url'] = self.context['request'].build_absolute_uri('/' + instance.pic.url)
        return representation

    class Meta:
        model = DailyLove
        fields = '__all__'

# views.py
class DailyLoveViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = DailyLove.objects.all().order_by('-date')
    serializer_class = DailyLoveSerializer

# result
HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, POST, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

[
    {
        "url": "http://localhost:8088/daily/3/",
        "date": "2019-05-04T12:33:00+08:00",
        "content": "123",
        "pic": "http://localhost:8088/daily/upload/api/media/DailyLove/nitish-meena-37745-unsplash.jpg",
        "pic_url": "http://localhost:8088/upload/api/media/DailyLove/nitish-meena-37745-unsplash.jpg"
    }
]

check this!

class FileFieldWithLinkRepresentation(serializers.FileField):

    def to_representation(self, value):
        return create_link(value.url, self.context['request'])

and create_link method:

def create_link(path: str, request: Request):
    domain = request.META['HTTP_HOST']
    if not path.startswith('/', 0, 1):
        path = '/' + path
    return request.scheme + "://" + domain + path

you can use FileFieldWithLinkRepresentation in every class that needs hyperlink
representation of a FileField.