Django set default form values

python django django-models django-forms

I have a Model as follows:

class TankJournal(models.Model):
    user = models.ForeignKey(User)
    tank = models.ForeignKey(TankProfile)
    ts = models.IntegerField(max_length=15)
    title = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    body = models.TextField()

I also have a model form for the above model as follows:

class JournalForm(ModelForm):
    tank = forms.IntegerField(widget=forms.HiddenInput()) 

    class Meta:
        model = TankJournal
        exclude = ('user','ts')

I want to know how to set the default value for that tank hidden field. Here is my function to show/save the form so far:

def addJournal(request, id=0):
    if not request.user.is_authenticated():
        return HttpResponseRedirect('/')

    # checking if they own the tank
    from django.contrib.auth.models import User
    user = User.objects.get(pk=request.session['id'])

    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = JournalForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            obj = form.save(commit=False)

            # setting the user and ts
            from time import time
            obj.ts = int(time())
            obj.user = user

            obj.tank = TankProfile.objects.get(pk=form.cleaned_data['tank_id'])

            # saving the test
            obj.save()

    else:
        form = JournalForm()

    try:
        tank = TankProfile.objects.get(user=user, id=id)
    except TankProfile.DoesNotExist:
        return HttpResponseRedirect('/error/')

Sergey Golovchenko

You can use Form.initial, which is explained here.

You have two options either populate the value when calling form constructor:

form = JournalForm(initial={'tank': 123})

or set the value in the form definition:

tank = forms.IntegerField(widget=forms.HiddenInput(), initial=123)

And how is that variable initial passed to the actual form? In the actual form model, do we have to write as a parameter/argument?

@bharal It's magic. ;-) (Or rather, Django form constructors understand the special "initial" variable and iterate through its contents without you needing to do anything extra). Personally, I prefer to specify default values in the form definition and only use the initial=... mechanism if the desired default is a dynamic value (e.g. something entered by a user, or based on their login, geographical location, etc.)

initial is not default. The initial value does not apply if the form has been bound:(.

Commenting here to mention another usecase where this solution of initial param will help: While sending a registration link to someone if you want to prepopulate the email/id or any other credential on the registration form then in that case you can't write that in the model itself as its dynamic rather you need to call the constructor with initial param as mentioned by @umnik700. Works great!

@Phlip: Don't override View.get_form to set initial data. Any CBV with a FormMixin (basically all CBVs that create or edit data) can either use a class-level initial variable (for unchanging defaults) or you can override FormMixin.get_initial() to return a dict of initial values to be passed to the form's constructor (for dynamic defaults.)

Andreas Zwerger

Other solution: Set initial after creating the form:

form.fields['tank'].initial = 123

smunk

If you are creating modelform from POST values initial can be assigned this way:

form = SomeModelForm(request.POST, initial={"option": "10"})

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/forms/modelforms/#providing-initial-values

That or None part is really not needed.

@smido, yes the or None part is needed. If the request is a GET request, request.POST will be an empty dictionary which is treated differently than None in the Form init method. Please review Django documentation.

Rafael Ortega

I had this other solution (I'm posting it in case someone else as me is using the following method from the model):

class onlyUserIsActiveField(forms.ModelForm):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(onlyUserIsActiveField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['is_active'].initial = False

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ['is_active']
        labels = {'is_active': 'Is Active'}
        widgets = {
            'is_active': forms.CheckboxInput( attrs={
                            'class':          'form-control bootstrap-switch',
                            'data-size':      'mini',
                            'data-on-color':  'success',
                            'data-on-text':   'Active',
                            'data-off-color': 'danger',
                            'data-off-text':  'Inactive',
                            'name':           'is_active',

            })
        }

The initial is definded on the __init__ function as self.fields['is_active'].initial = False

thanks! this works! I tried the method in the post above by adding initial while creating the form, somehow it did not work for me.

Actually there is an easier way: Just set default value in models. For example: alpha=models.FloatField(max_length=150, verbose_name="Enter an alpha level", default=0.05)

Flimm

As explained in Django docs, initial is not default.

The initial value of a field is intended to be displayed in an HTML . But if the user delete this value, and finally send back a blank value for this field, the initial value is lost. So you do not obtain what is expected by a default behaviour.

The default behaviour is : the value that validation process will take if data argument do not contain any value for the field.

To implement that, a straightforward way is to combine initial and clean_<field>():

class JournalForm(ModelForm):
    tank = forms.IntegerField(widget=forms.HiddenInput(), initial=123) 

    (...)

    def clean_tank(self):
        if not self['tank'].html_name in self.data:
            return self.fields['tank'].initial
        return self.cleaned_data['tank']

Valerii Boldakov

I hope this can help you:

form.instance.updatedby = form.cleaned_data['updatedby'] = request.user.id

xin.chen

I also encountered the need to set default values in the form during development. My solution is

initial={"":""}
form=ArticleModel(request.POST)
if form.has_changed():
    data = {i: form.cleaned_data[i] for i in form.changed_data}
    data.update({key: val for key, val in init_praram.items() if key not in form.changed_data})

use form.has_changed ,if form.fields is required you can use this method

Django set default form values

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