Question

I have a Django page with a form. I have some view code which deals with the form as normal but prepopulates the form with initial data from the a user’s session if available. This is so that when a user returns to this form they see previously selected options (yes, the form is quite extensive).

My views,py:

def myView(request):   
    ...
    form = ProjectInfoForm(request.POST or None)
    if form.is_valid():
        # process form, including a redirect
        ...

    # if there is form data in the session, let's use that
    # to initaliaze our from with data
    if key in request.session:
        form = ProjectInfoForm(
            initial={
                 'model': request.session.get('model'),
                 ...
            }
        )
    return render_to_response(template_name, {
        ...
    }, RequestContext(request))

Problem is: if I load the session data then the page does not display any error messages. The form does fail validation, I am just not getting the any output. Is there some conflict here with initial?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Well, from that snippet, if the session data is found then you completely re-initialize the form: the original, validated instance, which contained the POST data and any errors, has now been disposed. Presumably you would want to only enter that second if if the request is not a POST.