How do I get the text value of a selected option in django views.py

Question

For example: if first option Regular is selected then how can i get the value "1" and its text value "Regular" in views.py

<form method = "post" action = "{% url 'index' %}">
{% csrf_token %}
<select name = "drop1" >
    <option value="1">Regular</option>
    <option value="2">Medium</option>
    <option value="3">Large</option>
</select>
<input  type = "submit" value="Submit">

Answer 1

The value 1 should be in request.POST under the key drop1 .

This should help you see the selected value in your view:

print(request.POST['drop1'])

The text content of the <option> tag is not submitted to your view, only the text inside the value attribute. This is a HTML and web browser design; Python or Django do not control what gets sent in a POST request.

---

If you really need to get both strings ( 1 and Regular ) in the POST request, one workaround I have used in the past was to duplicate the text in the HTML tag

<option value"1-Regular">Regular</option>

so that the value 1-Regular gets sent; then I did split the string in the view

v1, v2 = request.POST['drop1'].split('-')
print(v1)
print(v2)

It is not a perfect solution, but it did work for me.

Answer 2

Another solution (also without using Django forms) I can think of is to use a Python dict (or list ) to hold all your options in your view:

import collections
DROP1_DICT = collections.OrderedDict(
    (1, 'Regular'),
    (2, 'Medium'),
)

def my_view(request):
    ...
    if request.method == 'POST':
        selected_value = request.POST['drop1']
        selected_label = DROP1_DICT[selected_value]
        print(selected_value)
        print(selected_label)
    else:
        ctx = {
            'drop1_dict': DROP1_DICT,
        }
        return render(request, 'my_template.html', ctx)

and render the template based on that:

<form method = "post" action = "{% url 'index' %}">
    {% csrf_token %}
    <select name = "drop1" >
    {% for k, v in drop1_dict.items %}
        <option value="{{ k }}">{{ v }}</option>
    {% endfor %}
    </select>
    <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

---

Of course, if you simply use a django form for this then all the underlying handling is done for you and you can just skip this part of the code.