How do I save post data using a decorator in Django

Question

I have the following view in my django app.

def edit(request, collection_id):
    collection = get_object_or_404(Collection, pk=collection_id)
    form = CollectionForm(instance=collection)
    if request.method == 'POST':
        if 'comicrequest' in request.POST:
            c = SubmissionLog(name=request.POST['newtitle'], sub_date=datetime.now())
            c.save()
        else:
            form = CollectionForm(request.POST, instance=collection)
            if form.is_valid():
                update_collection = form.save()
                return redirect('viewer:viewer', collection_id=update_collection.id)

    return render(request, 'viewer/edit.html', {'form': form})

It displays a form that allows you to edit a collection of images. The footer of my html contains a form that allows you to request a new image source from the admin. It submits to a different data model than the CollectionForm. Since this is in the footer of every view, I want to extract lines 5-7 of the code and turn it into a decorator. Is this possible and if so how might I go about doing that?

Answer 1

I would make a new view to handle the post of the form. And then stick a blank form instance in a context processor or something, so you can print it out on every page.

If you do want to make a decorator, i would suggest using class based views. That way, you could easily make a base view class that handles the form, and every other view could extend that.

EDIT:

Here's the docs on class based views: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/class-based-views/intro/

Note, I would still recommend having a separate view for the form POST, but here's what your solution might look like with class based views:

class SubmissionLogFormMixin(object):

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        context = super(SubmissionLogFormMixin, self).get_context_data(**kwargs)

        # since there could be another form on the page, you need a unique prefix
        context['footer_form'] = SubmissionLogForm(self.request.POST or None, prefix='footer_')
        return context

    def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        footer_form = SubmissionLogForm(request.POST, prefix='footer_')
        if footer_form.is_valid():
            c = footer_form.save(commit=False)
            c.sub_date=datetime.now()
            c.save()

        return super(SubmissionLogFormMixin, self).post(request, *args, **kwargs)


class EditView(SubmissionLogFormMixin, UpdateView):
    form_class = CollectionForm
    model = Collection


# you can use SubmissionLogFormMixin on any other view as well.

Note, that was very rough. Not sure if it will work perfectly. But that should give you an idea.