Django set default form values

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/')

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

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) 

Method 2

Other solution: Set initial after creating the form:

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

Method 3

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

Method 4

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

Method 5

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']

Method 6

I hope this can help you:

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

Method 7

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

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0