In DRF, how to get dictionary format in JSON response rather than List of dcitionaries - django

Question

How to get dictionary format in JSON response rather than List of dictionaries. Right now am getting response like list of dictionaries and I want to get response without list.
#Response I get for example
[
{
"id": 40,
"full_name": "Don Ser 1",
"email": "Donny#sfds.com",
"phone": 12345,
"address_line_1": "sdsdsdsd",
"address_line_2": "dsdsdsd",
},
{
"id": 41,
"full_name": "Don Ser 2",
"email": "Donny#sfds.com",
"phone": 121356456,
"address_line_1": "sdsdsdsd",
"address_line_2": "dsdsdsd",
}
]
#Response I Like to get is without List.
[
{
"id": 40,
"full_name": "Don Ser 1",
"email": "Donny#sfds.com",
"phone": 12345,
"address_line_1": "sdsdsdsd",
"address_line_2": "dsdsdsd",
},
{
"id": 41,
"full_name": "Don Ser 2",
"email": "Donny#sfds.com",
"phone": 121356456,
"address_line_1": "sdsdsdsd",
"address_line_2": "dsdsdsd",
}
}
How do I achieve this?
Additionally I like to know why it returned it in List rather than dictionary?

Answer 1

If you want to return a dict you must define a structure, e.g.
{'results': [
{
"id": 40,
"full_name": "Don Ser 1",
"email": "Donny#sfds.com",
"phone": 12345,
"address_line_1": "sdsdsdsd",
"address_line_2": "dsdsdsd",
},
{
"id": 41,
"full_name": "Don Ser 2",
"email": "Donny#sfds.com",
"phone": 121356456,
"address_line_1": "sdsdsdsd",
"address_line_2": "dsdsdsd",
}
]}
But just return a dict without a key is not possible.

Answer 2

If you are returning your response in DRF with serializer.data the simplest way to achieve that is:
return Response(serializer.data[0], status=status.HTTP_200_OK)
If you want to include the whole dictionary in another dictionary you'd have to give it a key so it would something like this:
return Response({"results":serializer.data[0]}, status=status.HTTP_200_OK)
Otherwise if you are using it on a simple item you can just specify it the way you want i.e. :
serializer = Serializer(data=request.data)
if serializer.is_valid():
device = serializer.save()
return Response({"pk": device.id}, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)