Question

I have a web application that allows users to create an account, and in doing so creates a user object form a the standard Django User model, associated with a custom UserProfile model, as well as an Address model. I have built an HTML form that allows the user to update their address, and profile, by means of using a ContactInfoForm that subclasses both the AddressForm and UserProfileForm; both of which are ModelForms, as follows:

class AddressForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = common_models.Address
        exclude = ('updated_dt','address_type','created_dt')

    def __init__(self,*args,**kwargs):
        super(AddressForm,self).__init__(*args,**kwargs)

    firstname = forms.CharField(max_length=100, min_length=1, error_messages={'required':'Please Enter First Name'})
    lastname = forms.CharField(max_length=100, min_length=1, error_messages={'required':'Please Enter Last Name'})
    address1 = forms.CharField(max_length=100, min_length=1, error_messages={'required':'Please Enter Address'})
    etc...

class UserProfileForm(forms.ModelForm): 
    class Meta:
        model = common_models.UserProfile
        exclude = ('created_dt','updated_dt','entity_active','profile_hash','user','address')

    account_type = forms.ChoiceField(choices=account_choices,widget=forms.Select(attrs={'id':'account_type_list'}),error_messages={'required':'Please Select Account Type'})
    name = forms.CharField(max_length=100, min_length=1, error_messages={'required':'Please Company Name'})
    supplier_type = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=common_models.SupplierTypeCode.objects.all(),required=False,widget=forms.Select(attrs={'id':'account_type_select'}))
    buyer_type = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=common_models.ClientTypeCode.objects.all(),widget=forms.Select(attrs={'id':'account_type_select'}),required=False)


class ContactInfoForm(AddressForm,UserProfileForm): 
    class Meta:
        model = common_models.User
        exclude = ('email','username',
           'password','last_login','date_joined')

    def __init__(self,user=None,request_post_data=None,*args,**kwargs):
        if not request_post_data:
                params = dict([tuple([k,v]) for k,v in user.get_profile().address.__dict__.items()] +
            [tuple([k,v]) for k,v in user.get_profile().__dict__.items()])
                super(ContactInfoForm,self).__init__(initial=params,*args,**kwargs)
            else:
                super(ContactInfoForm,self).__init__(request_post_data,instance=user)

Now, I have the following questions:

1) How do I save the ContactInfoForm, such that both the user_profile and the address tables are updated, along with the auth_user table? I have tried overriding the save function in the ContactInfoForm, then calling the save function of Address and UserProfile as follows:

def save(self):
    address = AddressForm.save(self)
    profile = UserProfileForm.save(self)

however, that doesn’t work as the instance of self is a user object, and thus both the above functions return a user object

2) Is my implementation of the init method of the ContactInfoForm the best way to pre-populate the HTML form when the user first visits the update contact info page? In other words, is the construction of the params dictionary and using it as the initial argument correct. Keep in my mind, I have access to the user object from request.user since this view is behind a login_required decorator…

3) Is there perhaps a better way to achieve what I am trying to achieve that isn’t as complicated and more Django/Pythonic?

Answer 1

Usually in Django such thing is being made by creating 3 separate forms and process them all in one view.

address_form = AddressForm(request.POST)
profile_form = UserProfileForm(request.POST)
contacts_form = ContactInfoForm(request.POST)
if address_form.is_valid() and profile_form.is_valid() and contacts_form.is_valid():
    address_form.save()
    profile_form.save()
    contacts_form.save()

Maybe it’s bit more code this way but it’s much more clear and easy to read.