DRF show different fields on 'list' and 'get_object'

Question

I am using viewsets like this:

class UserViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    """Viewset for model User."""

    queryset = User.objects.all()
    serializer_class = UserSerializer

and my serializer has following fields:

fields = ('id', 'url', 'username', 'first_name', 'middle_name', 'last_name', 'role',
          'get_role_display', 'is_authenticated', 'is_staff', 'is_superuser', )

When I access the api to list all users with this url /api/user/, it returns this json_data:

[
{
    "id": 1,
    "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/user/1/",
    "username": "admin",
    "first_name": "",
    "middle_name": null,
    "last_name": "",
    "role": "A",
    "get_role_display": "Admin",
    "is_authenticated": true,
    "is_staff": true,
    "is_superuser": true
},
{
    "id": 2,
    "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/user/2/",
    "username": "7004104463",
    "first_name": "Vaibhav",
    "middle_name": "Bold",
    "last_name": "Vishal",
    "role": "S",
    "get_role_display": "Student",
    "is_authenticated": true,
    "is_staff": false,
    "is_superuser": false
}
]

But what I am trying to do is returns only a few fields on list, say only 'id', 'username', 'url', but on requests where a single object is requested like this /api/user/1/ I want to return all fields. I want to avoid using two different rest_framework views. I want a single viewset and serializer to achieve this. Is there any way to make it happen?
I am using React on frontend and I want to avoid fetching unnecessary data.

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 28 '22 at 15:28

9

The only way that I know of is to overwrite the get_serializer_class-Method and return a different Serializer based on the current request.

class UserViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    ....
    def get_serializer_class(self):
        if self.action == 'retrieve':
            return UserDetailSerializerClass
        return UserListSerializerClass

There is also a pypi package

Credits: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22755648/7774036 & https://stackoverflow.com/a/30670569/7774036

edited Apr 28 '22 at 15:28

Yann

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answered Nov 14 '18 at 14:22

escaped

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Thanks, I will use try this tomorrow, meanwhile I will also try to find some way to make this work with just one seriailzer. – Vaibhav Vishal Nov 14 '18 at 15:00
Serializers aren't designed to work the way you want, but I'm sure there is a way to hack it in. Its code, there always is, but I wouldn't recommend it. Learn how to use >1, and maybe use the pypi package to make it easier (i wrote my own version). – Andrew Nov 22 '18 at 08:25
I figure out a few different solutions like popping fields in __init__ of serializer depending on view's action. Those made the code a little shorter but more complicated. So I think using different serializer class is the best option as suggested by you. – Vaibhav Vishal Jan 08 '19 at 07:41

DRF show different fields on 'list' and 'get_object'

1 Answers1