Disable strip white space from models.CharField

Question

I have a django application using models.CharField. The issue is trailing whitespace is removed, which weirdly enough, I DO NOT WANT TO HAPPEN.

I am only accessing the field through the Admin, not a form. I understand through other posts that forms have an strip = False option, but models do not.

Is there an easy way I can achieve this?

A `ModelAdmin` *has* a form. You can override that form, and thus specify how to handle certain fields. — Willem Van Onsem, Oct 23 '19 at 10:29

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 26 '19 at 09:37

Thanks Willem, but I wasn't exactly sure how to do that.

That said, I've worked it out myself, with a little help from Django TextField/CharField is stripping spaces/blank lines.

Step by step for those still learning, like me:

Define a custom form, overriding the init method (forms.py)

class YourForm(forms.ModelForm):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(YourForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['myfield'].strip = False

    class Meta:
        model = YourModel
        fields = "__all__"

Reference the custom form when defining the model admin (admin.py)

from .forms import YourForm

class YourModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    # list_display, ordering etc.

    form = YourForm

Disable strip white space from models.CharField

1 Answers1