Django: When saving input from drop down lists, saves option value instead of actual value

Question

to preface my question I would like to say I'm pretty new to Django, so be gentle. Thanks in advance!

I have two drop down boxes, All_team_Form and Product_Form (both ModelChoiceField).

class All_team_Form(forms.ModelForm):
   teams = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset= All_teams.objects.all().order_by('team_name'))

   class Meta:
       model = All_teams
       fields = ('team_name', 'team_type')
       widgets = {'team_name': HiddenInput(),'team_type': HiddenInput()}


class Product_Form(forms.ModelForm):
   products = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset= Product.objects.all().order_by('product'))

   class Meta:
       model = Product
       fields = ('product',)
       widgets = {'product': HiddenInput(),}

The way I'm saving the POSTED input is:

if request.method == 'POST':
    pattern = request.POST.get('pattern')
    team = request.POST.get('teams')
    product = request.POST.get('products')
    pub_date = timezone.now()
    team_obj = Sys_team(pattern=pattern, sys_team=team, product=product, pub_date= pub_date, alert= "[CPU]")
    team_obj.save()


context = {

'all_form' : All_team_Form(),
'product_form' : Product_Form()

}

return render(request, 'test4.html', context)

Template:

<td>              
{% for a in all_form %}
   {{a}} 
{% endfor %}
</td>

The current problem I'm encountering is that when it is saving the Sys_team object, it gets what I assume is the default option value for all_form, which are numbers. when I print out all_form in the python shell, it displays a list in the format of: <option value="4">thestuffIwant</option>

A lot of the documentation I've read says I should include <option value = {{ a }}>{{a}}</option> . However, when I try that it messes up the drop down lists by adding a normal list of all the options in the drop down list above it. Help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

You must validate your form first and use form.cleaned_data instead of request.POST.

if request.method == 'POST':
    all_form = All_team_Form(request.POST)
    product_form = Product_Form(request.POST)
    if all_form.is_valid() and product_form.is_valid():
        pattern = request.POST.get('pattern')
        team = all_form.cleaned_data.get('teams')
        product = product_form.cleaned_data.get('products')
        pub_date = timezone.now()
        team_obj = Sys_team(pattern=pattern, sys_team=team, product=product, pub_date= pub_date, alert= "[CPU]")
        team_obj.save()
else:
    all_form = All_team_Form()
    product_form = Product_Form()

context = {

'all_form' : all_form,
'product_form' : product_form,

}

return render(request, 'test4.html', context)

Answer 2

Fixed my problem. I just added an additional argument to my ModelForm queryset.

teams = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset= All_teams.objects.all().order_by('team_name'), to_field_name="team_name")

I only used forms to load the drop down list and decided against using forms to save the data because I wasn't saving the user input to a form. I had multiple drop down lists (all different forms) and other user input that I wanted to save to one of my models. It is easier and probably more efficient just to use request.POST.get('xxxx') than to declare each respective form model.