Serialise an extended User Model in Django

Question

I'm extending a django auth user model in a Profile model:

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

class Profile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    activity = models.IntegerField(default=500)

    def _str_(self):
        return self

in my views I'm getting the current auth user and I get the associated profile:

@api_view(['GET'])
@permission_classes([IsAuthenticated])
def getUserProfile(request):
    profile = Profile.objects.get(user = request.user)
    serializer = profileSerializer(profile, many=False)
    return Response(serializer.data)

Here is my serializers code:

from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Profile

class profileSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Profile
        fields = ('first_name', 'activity')

The error I'm getting that Profie object has not a first_name attribute, but when I replace 'first_name' with 'user' I get only the id of the user, so I want to show the first_name as well.

Thank you

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 30 '21 at 13:53

The OneToOneField connects your field user in the Profile model to a User object which has a first_name attribute, but in the Profile table that user field is just a number that says which User object it is. To access the first name, you can do this:

from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Profile

class profileSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Profile
        fields = '__all__'

Then in your template you could display the first_name like this, assuming you pass person to it where person is an instance of the Profile model:

{{ person.user.first_name }}

I also think it would be less confusing to use another name for the field, rather then user. Call it person maybe, like:

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

class Profile(models.Model):
    person = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    activity = models.IntegerField(default=500)

    def _str_(self):
        return self

Thank you for your answer, it works but it is not exactly what I need, I need to use the serializer in my views to return `serializer.data`, but even after applying what you said the `serializer.data` keeps having the `user id` and the `activity` as values, like it is not showing the user fields recursively — Oussama Eddahri, Dec 30 '21 at 15:08
Thanks for your response. I see that this may be out of my knowledge. But perhaps https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49058931/drf-serializer-depth-makes-fields-ignored-on-create would help? — raphael, Dec 30 '21 at 16:12
Thank you, Yes the solution I found is similar to what is in the link you shared — Oussama Eddahri, Dec 31 '21 at 13:10

Ahtisham · Answer 2 · 2021-12-30T16:45:37.230

0

Try this:

from django.contrib.auth.models import User

class profileSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    first_name = serializers.CharField(max_length=200, read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = Profile
        fields = ('user', 'first_name', 'activity')

    def get_first_name(self, obj):
        return User.objects.filter(id=obj.user.id).first().values_list('first_name', flat=True).last()

edited Dec 30 '21 at 16:45

answered Dec 30 '21 at 16:21

Ahtisham

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Thank you for your answer, I did found a better solution that I'm going to share – Oussama Eddahri Dec 31 '21 at 13:09

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 31 '21 at 13:13

I was able to show the fields I wanted using Django depth in the serializer

from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Profile
from django.contrib.auth.models import User


class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('first_name', 'last_name')


class profileSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    user = UserSerializer()
    class Meta:
        model = Profile
        fields = ('activity','user')
        depth=1

Serialise an extended User Model in Django

3 Answers3