How do you serialize a model instance in Django?

There is a good answer for this and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned. With a few lines you can handle dates, models, and everything else.

Make a custom encoder that can handle models:

from django.forms import model_to_dict
from django.core.serializers.json import DjangoJSONEncoder
from django.db.models import Model

class ExtendedEncoder(DjangoJSONEncoder):

    def default(self, o):

        if isinstance(o, Model):
            return model_to_dict(o)

        return super().default(o)

Now use it when you use json.dumps

json.dumps(data, cls=ExtendedEncoder)

Now models, dates and everything can be serialized and it doesn't have to be in an array or serialized and unserialized. Anything you have that is custom can just be added to the default method.

You can even use Django's native JsonResponse this way:

from django.http import JsonResponse

JsonResponse(data, encoder=ExtendedEncoder)

To avoid the array wrapper, remove it before you return the response:

import json
from django.core import serializers

def getObject(request, id):
    obj = MyModel.objects.get(pk=id)
    data = serializers.serialize('json', [obj,])
    struct = json.loads(data)
    data = json.dumps(struct[0])
    return HttpResponse(data, mimetype='application/json')

I found this interesting post on the subject too:

http://timsaylor.com/convert-django-model-instances-to-dictionaries

It uses django.forms.models.model_to_dict, which looks like the perfect tool for the job.

You can easily use a list to wrap the required object and that's all what django serializers need to correctly serialize it, eg.:

from django.core import serializers

# assuming obj is a model instance
serialized_obj = serializers.serialize('json', [ obj, ])

If you're dealing with a list of model instances the best you can do is using serializers.serialize(), it gonna fit your need perfectly.

However, you are to face an issue with trying to serialize a single object, not a list of objects. That way, in order to get rid of different hacks, just use Django's model_to_dict (if I'm not mistaken, serializers.serialize() relies on it, too):

from django.forms.models import model_to_dict

# assuming obj is your model instance
dict_obj = model_to_dict( obj )

You now just need one straight json.dumps call to serialize it to json:

import json
serialized = json.dumps(dict_obj)

That's it! :)