Question

I have a very complicated form and I choose to not use ModelForm since I needed flexibility and control over the fields. Since I am not using ModelForm, I can’t simply do something like instance=order, where order = Order.objects.get(pk=1).

Currently I am pre-populating every field with initial in the forms.py as oppose to the views.py like this

self.fields['work_type'] = forms.ChoiceField(choices=Order.WORK_TYPE_CHOICES, initial=order.work_type)

But I was wondering if I could pass the entire order object to a form or do I have to declare initial to every field?

Is there a way to do something like

order_form = OrderEditForm(data=request.POST, initial=order)

in views.py?

Answer 1

For future reference to other people:

I have since found out after reading SO’s comments and answers that it’s better to use ModelForm even if you end up explicitly defining every field manually (using something like self.fields['foo'] = forms.CharField()).

In any case, if you are trying to pass a dictionary of current values in a form then the best (built-in) way to convert a model to a dictionary is actually using model_to_dict:

from django.forms.models import model_to_dict

order = Order.objects.get(pk=1)
dictionary = model_to_dict(order)
form = OrderEditForm(dictionary)

I got the solution from this blog. I hope this will be helpful for someone.