How do you save Textarea form data line by line using Django's CreateView?

Question

I have a Model and would like to save data as a batch by using a textarea form in Django. The data shall be save line by line, which I am using splitlines(), each data is comma separated by split(","). I am operating the manipulation in the form_valid() function but I can't seem to get it right.

Only the last line is saved successfully.

forms.py

class DataForm(forms.ModelForm):
   textarea_data = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea)

   class Meta:
       model = Item
       exclude = ('part_number','length','height','weight')

views.py

class InsertData(generic.CreateView):
    model = Item
    form_class = DataForm

    def get_success_url(self):
        return reverse('item_list')

    def form_valid(self, form):
        self.object = form.save(commit=False)
        textarea_data = form.cleaned_data['textarea_data ']
        data_line_list = textarea_data.splitlines()

        for each_line in data_line_list:
            each_line_list = each_line.split(",")
            self.object.part_number = each_line_list[0]
            self.object.length = each_line_list[1]
            self.object.weight = each_line_list[2]
            self.object.height = each_line_list[3]
            self.object.save()

May I know where did I go wrong. Should the manipulation be done some where else?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 21 '21 at 10:16

self.object.save() keeps overwriting your object. You want to create separate db records from each line of your textarea input.

Better create a simple form forms.Form for data entry instead of ModelForm.

Then on the its form_valid, iterate through the lines and create objects. Each iteration should create a new object and save.

You need to get rid of the textarea field as well.

If its a lot of data, it’s better to use bulk create function for performance.

I understand your logic and thank you for the suggestion. – Young Ker Dec 21 '21 at 16:19 — Young Ker, Dec 21 '21 at 16:19

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 21 '21 at 16:16

I found the solution after reading this https://stackoverflow.com/a/33027228/13152307 .

I should set the primary key to none at the beginning of each iteration.

for each_line in data_line_list:
    self.object.pk = None    #add this line
    each_line_list = each_line.split(",")
    self.object.part_number = each_line_list[0]
    self.object.length = each_line_list[1]
    self.object.weight = each_line_list[2]
    self.object.height = each_line_list[3]
    self.object.save()

I understand that it may not be a good way to do so, but at least it works now.

How do you save Textarea form data line by line using Django's CreateView?

2 Answers2