Object of type 'AuthToken' is not JSON serializable

Question

I'm getting the above error when creating token, here's the code:

from rest_framework import generics, permissions
from rest_framework.response import Response 
from knox.models import AuthToken
from .serializers import UserSerializer, RegisterSerializer

class RegisterAPI(generics.GenericAPIView):
    serializer_class = RegisterSerializer

def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    serializer = self.get_serializer(data=request.data)
    serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
    user = serializer.save()
    return Response({
        "user": UserSerializer(user, context=self.get_serializer_context()).data,
        "token": AuthToken.objects.create(user)
    })

what am I doing wrong here

Secessionist

Well you will need to serialize the AuthToken as well, like you did with the user (or pass an attribute of that token that can be converted to JSON (like a str, int, etc.). An AuthToken itself is, at least not without some extra logic, serializable). – Emulate

How to serialize AuthToken ? – Secessionist

With a serializer, just like you did with the UserSerializer. – Emulate

ok, got it, it's a tuple which can't be serialized, doing this worked AuthToken.objects.create(user)[1]. – Secessionist

This seems to be a change in django-rest-knox. I have a project with django-rest-know v 3.6.0 using the code you have in the post. I'm just starting an new project (using version 4.0.1), and I've had to add the [1] to the token serialization. – Westland

Answer 1

The Token.objects.create returns a tuple (instance, token). So in order to get token use the index 1

"token": AuthToken.objects.create(user)[1]

Bilberry

But is that the real token which we need to work with. What i mean is when we print AuthToken.objects.create(user) it gives output like this; (<AuthToken: long_token : username>, 'another_token') and when i checked the database, the "long_token" is stored in the database not the "another_token" but the method you are using returns "another_token". – Gabriellia

Answer 2

Better way is use this method in python

_, token = AuthToken.objects.create(user)
return Response({
    "user": UserSerializer(user, context=self.get_serializer_context()).data,
    "token": token
})

Morgun

Answer 3

This particular error occurs because the Token.objects.create returns a tuple (instance, token). just use the second position [1] by using instead of former

"token": AuthToken.objects.create(user)[1]

Bambara

Answer 4

If you're using Django rest framework auth token do this:

from rest_framework.authtoken.models import Token

...
# The token will be in token variable, created variable will be a bool
token, created = Token.objects.get_or_create(user=request.user)

# Object of type Token is not JSON serializable, so convert token to string
token = str(token)

Covariance