Question

I’ve posted back a form and within my view I’d like to add a a field.

Editing the slug field. It is the slug field which I’ve decided to hide in the form and automatically generate it in the view. How can I append the slug field to the form?

if form.is_valid():            
    form.[want_to_add_slug_field_here] = slugify(form.cleaned_data['title'])
    form.save()

---

I’m using (this is to hide the fields from the front end users completely as I want to automate these.

class LinkForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Link
        exclude = ('pub_date', 'slug', 'posted_by',)

So these fields are not on my form when it’s generating. I’m wanting to add these fields into the FORM before the save. Is this even possible?

Answer 1

There are many ways to deal with that (I assume you use ModelForm):

1. Use form’s clean method:

   class MyForm(forms.models.ModelForm):
       """ This is a form for your model. It includes all fields, but you
           won't display the slug field to the user. """
   
       def clean(self):
           cleaned_data = self.cleaned_data
           cleaned_data["slug"] = slugify(form.cleaned_data["title"])
           return cleaned_data
   

2. Add the slug to the model before commiting:

   if form.is_valid():
        instance = form.save(commit=False)
        instance.slug = slugify(form.cleaned_data["title"])
        instance.save()
   

3. Override your model’s save method:

   class MyModel(models.Model):
   
       def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
            self.slug = slugify(self.title)
            return super(MyModel, self).save(*args, **kwargs)
   

4. Use a 3rd party autoslug field, for example django-autoslug

I personally use the 4th way.