Question

So I am an avid user of both ModelForms and the {{form.as_table}} template tag. This lets me have a generic form template that I can reuse without knowing my specific fields. Now I’d like to print that same model out exactly like I did for the form, but without the form fields. I have never come across a good way to do this. Anyone know of one?

Here is an example, to be more specific:

model:
class ExampleModel(models.Model):
    info1 = models.TextField()
    info2 = models.TextField()

form:
class ExampleForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = ExampleModel

view:
def example_form_view(request):
    form = ExampleForm()
    return render_to_response('form.html', locals(), context_instance=RequestContext(request))

def example_display_view(request):
    model = ExampleModel.objects.get(id=1)
    return render_to_response('model.html', locals(), context_instance=RequestContext(request))

To print out the form, I have a template that has:

<form action="." method="post">
    {% csrf_token %}
    <table>
        {{ form.as_table }}
        <tr>
            <td></td>
            <td><input type='submit' value="submit" /></td>
        </tr> 
    </table>
</form>

And I’d also like to be able to have a generic template that includes this:

<table>
    {{ model.as_table }} 
</table>

and get the same layout as the form one, but without the form. Anyone know of any way to do this?

I apologize if this has been asked before, but I did a search and didn’t find anything. Although I wasn’t sure what to search for.

Answer 1

You could define an as_table method on your model (or a superclass if you want to reuse it in multiple models) such as:

def as_table(self):
    output = '<table>'
    # for each field in model
    for field in self._meta.fields:
        # optionally skip any unwanted fields such as primary keys, etc
        # if field.auto_created:
        #    continue
        output += '<tr><th>%s</th><td>%s</td></tr>' % (
            field.name, getattr(self, field.name))
    output += '</table>'
    return output