Question

again, apologies for what is probably a straightforward question!

Ok, so!

my problem is i have a saveModel function, where it saves a model. If the model is all good (is_valid), it will save the model and redirect to pageA

if the model is bad, or the request is a GET, then i’d like to redirect to pageB

all well and good, but i do this several times, how annoying! I don’t want to cut and paste all the time, so i came up with this:

class SaveModel(View):
    def as_view(self):
        if request.method == "POST":
            form = SaveModel.getPostForm(self.request)
            if form.is_valid():
                processedForm = SaveModel.processForm(self.request)
                processedForm.save()
                if (self.success_template):
                    return render_to_response(self.success_template)
                else:
                    return render_to_response('pageA.html')
        else:
            form = SaveModel.getForm()
        if (self.context_object_name):
            contextName = context_object_name
        else:
            contextName = 'form'
        if (self.template_name):
            return render_to_response(template_name,{contextName:form})
        else :
            return render_to_response('pageB.html',{contextName:form})

    def getForm(self):
        return None

    def getPostForm(self,request):
        return None

    def processForm(self,form,request):
        return None

THEN, i define other classes to handle particular models, like, for example, so:

class StoryModelView(SaveModel):
    def getForm(self,request):
        return StoryForm()

    def getPostForm(self,request):
        return StoryForm(request.POST)

    def processForm(self,form,request):
        theStory = form.save(commit=False)
        theStory.user = request.user
        return theStory

and then, finally, in my urls.py i will refer to (as above) the model to use like so:

url(r'^addStory/$',
    StoryModelView.as_view(
        context_object_name='form',
        template_name='accounts/addStory.html',
        success_template='accounts/addStorySuccess.html'
    )
),

This doesn’t seem to work though – pycharm assures me that my references to self.context_object_name and so on are invalid. I’m v. new to python and django (which is why i thought i’d build a website with them! clever andrew!), so i am sure that i’ve missed a whole bunch of things (abstract methods and stuff… python does that, right?)

what do i need to do to get this all working? Is this how i should be doing things?

Answer 1

ANSWER BY ME!

Ok, so the comments everyone has written about the CreateView are probably correct. “Probably” because i never ended up using it, because i ended up sticking with my code instead.

In case anybody is, like me, new to python and django and wants to see how the whole thing works, here we are!

class SaveModel(View):
    success_template = None
    context_object_name = None
    template_name = None

    def post(self, request):
        form = self.getPostForm(self.request)
        if form.is_valid():
            processedForm = self.processForm(form,self.request)
            processedForm.save()
            if self.success_template:
                return render_to_response(self.success_template)
            else:
                return render_to_response('accounts/addStorySuccess.html')
        else:
            self.renderValidations(form)

    def get(self,request):
        form = self.getForm()
        self.renderValidations(form)

    def renderValidations(self,form):
        if self.context_object_name:
            contextName = self.context_object_name
        else:
            contextName = 'form'
        if self.template_name:
            return render_to_response(self.template_name,{contextName:form})
        else :
            return render_to_response('accounts/addStory.html',{contextName:form})

    def getForm(self):
        return None

    def getPostForm(self,request):
        return None

    def processForm(self,form,request):
        return None    

and that is the main class, then i can override it like so:

class StoryModelView(SaveModel):
    def getForm(self):
        return StoryForm()

    def getPostForm(self,request):
        return StoryForm(request.POST)

    def processForm(self,form,request):
        theStory = form.save(commit=False)
        theStory.user = request.user
        return theStory

i tripped myself up with how “self” works in python a few times. it seems to be magically sent across with all method calls, but you need it as the first arg in the method declaration (but you never need to use it when calling/using the method)

i think there’s only post or get for methods when overriding the View class. i don’t have a good idea of the “process” of the call, or what the order is, dispatch was mentioned as something to override, but i suspect that is only where i need to change when/how to deal with differing request types (GET, POST, HEAD etc)

oh! the urls.py!

url(r'^addStory/$',
    StoryModelView.as_view(
        context_object_name='form',
        template_name = 'accounts/addStory.html',
        success_template= 'accounts/addStorySuccess.html'
    )
),

i can just chuck whatever i want into that “as_view” call, and then, as long as those parameters are defined in the overriding class it’s all good.

so yay! my classes all work and women want me. use my code, and this can happen to you too!*

*results atypical and fictional. your results may differ.