Accessing request.user in class based generic view CreateView in order to set FK field in Django

Question

So I have a model that includes:

class Place(models.Model):
    ....
    created_by = models.ForeignKey(User)

My view is like so:

class PlaceFormView(CreateView):
    form_class = PlaceForm

    @method_decorator(login_required)
    def dispatch(self, *args, **kwargs):
        return super(PlaceFormView, self).dispatch(*args, **kwargs)

Is there a way for me to access request.user and set created_by to that user? I've looked through the docs, but can't seem to find any hints toward this.

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Execrable

Answer 1

How about overriding form_valid which does the form saving? Save it yourself, do whatever you want to it, then do the redirect.

class PlaceFormView(CreateView):
    form_class = PlaceForm

    @method_decorator(login_required)
    def dispatch(self, *args, **kwargs):
        return super(PlaceFormView, self).dispatch(*args, **kwargs)

    def form_valid(self, form):
        obj = form.save(commit=False)
        obj.created_by = self.request.user
        obj.save()        
        return http.HttpResponseRedirect(self.get_success_url())

Weatherboarding

Thanks! This works, except for the redirect. I get the error: "No URL to redirect to. Either provide a url or define a get_absolute_url method on the Model." However, I do have a get_absolute_url() set on the model, and when I first got this view working (with created_by a select box on form) it redirected properly. Trying to figure this out now. Any ideas? – Execrable

Yes, it appears get_absolute_url is pulled from self.object - so in your code, set self.object = obj in form_valid – Rosendorosene

Is it possible to do this without extending the CreateView? – Lemaceon

Shouldn't we rather do at the end of form_valid: return super(PlaceFormView, self).form_valid(form) Otherwise the default form_valid is never called... – Argentite

@Argentite the "default" form_valid does the same, you can check it easily at ccbv.co.uk, it justs saves the object and redirects. – Manama

Awsome answer. Works like a charm ! – Bilestone

Answer 2

I know that this is old, but for other people with this problem:

There is an even simpler way - since saving a form multiple times will always use the same model instance, you can also do:

def form_valid(self, form):
    obj = form.save(commit=False)
    obj.created_by = self.request.user
    return super(PlaceFormView, self).form_valid(form)

That way, you get all the benefits of the super call - it's trivial to see that you're really only adding those two lines of code, and you don't have to repeat yourself by replicating the redirect logic.

Rosel

Answer 3

An alternate way to do this is to pass the user through overwriting the get_initial() method in the CreateView, and modify save method in the PlaceForm class to save the user:

class PlaceForm(forms.ModelForm):
    ...
    ...
    ...

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.created_by = kwargs['initial']['created_by']
        super(PlaceForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

    def save(self, commit=True):
        obj = super(PlaceForm, self).save(False)
        obj.created_by = self.created_by
        commit and obj.save()
        return obj

class PlaceFormView(CreateView):
    ...
    ...
    form_class = PlaceForm

    def get_initial(self):
        self.initial.update({ 'created_by': self.request.user })
        return self.initial

This way the saving logic is still encapsulated within the form class.

Actinism

This worked for me and seems like the best and simplest way to solve this problem – Was