[Django]-How to add custom field in ModelSerializer?

In fact there a solution without touching at all the model. You can use SerializerMethodField which allow you to plug any method to your serializer.

class FooSerializer(ModelSerializer):
    foo = serializers.SerializerMethodField()

    def get_foo(self, obj):
        return "Foo id: %i" % obj.pk

…for clarity, if you have a Model Method defined in the following way:

class MyModel(models.Model):
    ...

    def model_method(self):
        return "some_calculated_result"

You can add the result of calling said method to your serializer like so:

class MyModelSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    model_method_field = serializers.CharField(source='model_method')

p.s. Since the custom field isn’t really a field in your model, you’ll usually want to make it read-only, like so:

class Meta:
    model = MyModel
    read_only_fields = (
        'model_method_field',
        )

After reading all the answers here my conclusion is that it is impossible to do this cleanly. You have to play dirty and do something hadkish like creating a write_only field and then override the validate and to_representation methods. This is what worked for me:

class FooSerializer(ModelSerializer):

    foo = CharField(write_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = Foo
        fields = ["foo", ...]

    def validate(self, data):
        foo = data.pop("foo", None)
        # Do what you want with your value
        return super().validate(data)

    def to_representation(self, instance):
        data = super().to_representation(instance)
        data["foo"] = whatever_you_want
        return data

here answer for your question.
you should add to your model Account:

@property
def my_field(self):
    return None

now you can use:

customField = CharField(source='my_field')

source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/18396622/3220916

To show self.author.full_name, I got an error with Field. It worked with ReadOnlyField:

class CommentSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    author_name = ReadOnlyField(source="author.full_name")
    class Meta:
        model = Comment
        fields = ('url', 'content', 'author_name', 'author')

I was looking for a solution for adding a writable custom field to a model serializer. I found this one, which has not been covered in the answers to this question.

It seems like you do indeed need to write your own simple Serializer.

class PassThroughSerializer(serializers.Field):
    def to_representation(self, instance):
        # This function is for the direction: Instance -> Dict
        # If you only need this, use a ReadOnlyField, or SerializerField
        return None

    def to_internal_value(self, data):
        # This function is for the direction: Dict -> Instance
        # Here you can manipulate the data if you need to.
        return data

Now you can use this Serializer to add custom fields to a ModelSerializer

class MyModelSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer)
    my_custom_field = PassThroughSerializer()

    def create(self, validated_data):
        # now the key 'my_custom_field' is available in validated_data
        ...
        return instance

This also works, if the Model MyModel actually has a property called my_custom_field but you want to ignore its validators.

With the last version of Django Rest Framework, you need to create a method in your model with the name of the field you want to add.

class Foo(models.Model):
    . . .
    def foo(self):
        return 'stuff'
    . . .

class FooSerializer(ModelSerializer):
    foo = serializers.ReadOnlyField()

    class Meta:
        model = Foo
        fields = ('foo',)