Question

Is it possible to have a variable number of fields using django forms?

The specific application is this:

A user can upload as many pictures as they want on the image upload form. Once the pictures are uploaded they are taken to a page where they can give the pictures a name and description. The number of pictures will depend on how many the user has chosen to upload.

So how do I get django to generate a form using a variable number of input fields (which could be passed as an argument if necessary)?

edit: a few things have changed since the article mentioned in jeff bauer’s answer was written.

Namely this line of code which doesn’t seem to work:

# BAD CODE DO NOT USE!!! return type('ContactForm', [forms.BaseForm], { 'base_fields': fields }) 

So here is what I came up with…

The Answer I used:

 from tagging.forms import TagField from django import forms  def make_tagPhotos_form(photoIdList):     'Expects a LIST of photo objects (ie. photo_sharing.models.photo)'      fields = {}      for id in photoIdList:         id = str(id)          fields[id+'_name'] = forms.CharField()         fields[id+'_tags'] = TagField()         fields[id+'_description'] = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea)      return type('tagPhotos', (forms.BaseForm,), { 'base_fields': fields })  

note tagging is not part of django, but it is free and very useful. check it out: django-tagging

Answer 1

Yes, it’s possible to create forms dynamically in Django. You can even mix and match dynamic fields with normal fields.

class EligibilityForm(forms.Form):     def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):         super(EligibilityForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)         # dynamic fields here ...         self.fields['plan_id'] = CharField()     # normal fields here ...     date_requested = DateField() 

For a better elaboration of this technique, see James Bennett’s article: So you want a dynamic form?

http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2008/nov/09/dynamic-forms/