How do I create multiple model instances with Django Rest Framework?
Here's another solution, you don't need to override your serializers __init__
method. Just override your view's (ModelViewSet) 'create'
method. Notice many=isinstance(request.data,list)
. Here many=True
when you send an array of objects to create, and False
when you send just the one. This way, you can save both an item and a list!
from rest_framework import status, viewsets
from rest_framework.response import Response
class ThingViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
"""This view snippet provides both list and item create functionality."""
#I took the liberty to change the model to queryset
queryset = Thing.objects.all()
serializer_class = ThingSerializer
def create(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
serializer = self.get_serializer(data=request.data, many=isinstance(request.data,list))
serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
self.perform_create(serializer)
headers = self.get_success_headers(serializer.data)
return Response(serializer.data, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED, headers=headers)
I know this was asked a while ago now but I found it whilst trying to figure this out myself.
It turns out if you pass many=True
when instantiating the serializer class for a model, it can then accept multiple objects.
This is mentioned here in the django rest framework docs
For my case, my view looked like this:
class ThingViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
"""This view provides list, detail, create, retrieve, update
and destroy actions for Things."""
model = Thing
serializer_class = ThingSerializer
I didn't really want to go writing a load of boilerplate just to have direct control over the instantiation of the serializer and pass many=True
, so in my serializer class I override the __init__
instead:
class ThingSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
many = kwargs.pop('many', True)
super(ThingSerializer, self).__init__(many=many, *args, **kwargs)
class Meta:
model = Thing
fields = ('loads', 'of', 'fields', )
Posting data to the list URL for this view in the format:
[
{'loads':'foo','of':'bar','fields':'buzz'},
{'loads':'fizz','of':'bazz','fields':'errrrm'}
]
Created two resources with those details. Which was nice.
I came to a similar conclusion as Daniel Albarral, but here's a more succinct solution:
class CreateListModelMixin(object):
def get_serializer(self, *args, **kwargs):
""" if an array is passed, set serializer to many """
if isinstance(kwargs.get('data', {}), list):
kwargs['many'] = True
return super(CreateListModelMixin, self).get_serializer(*args, **kwargs)