Django ModelForm saves and fetches <QuerySet object> instead of values - django

Question

I have a simple Django 3.1.0 app I need to create in order to assign Tasks with Tags (or assign tags into tasks).
Model
class Task(models.Model):
user = models.CharField(max_length=33)
time = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
task = models.CharField(max_length=500)
tags = models.CharField(max_length=100, default="None", null=True)
class Tag(models.Model):
tag = models.CharField(max_length=30, default="No Tag")
members = models.ManyToManyField('Task', related_name="tag")
class Meta:
verbose_name = "tag"
verbose_name_plural = "tags"
view
def main(request):
model = Task.objects.values().all()
tags = Tag.objects.values().all()
form = TaskForm()
con = {'context': list(model), 'form': form, 'tags': list(tags)}
if request.method == 'POST':
form = TaskForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.save()
return redirect('/')
else:
form = TaskForm()
return render(request, "tasks.html", con)
form
class TaskForm(ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = Task
fields = ['user', 'task', 'tags']
template_name = 'tasks.html'
tags = ModelMultipleChoiceField(
queryset= Tag.objects.all(),
widget=CheckboxSelectMultiple(), required=False,
)
task_form
<form method="post" class="form">
{% csrf_token %}
{{form}}
<input type="submit" value="Save">
</form>
This returns in the tags list the items listed as:
Tag object (1)
Tag object (2)
And when it saves when i press submit, it fetches in a table (in another template), the values saved in the text of <QuerySet [<Tag: Tag object (2)>]>
That's how it stores them in the database.
I have managed to extract the values as they are ('jenkins','AKS') and send them in the template using this (bootstrapvuejs) : {% for tag in tags %}<b-form-checkbox>{{tag.tag}}</b-form-checkbox>{% endfor %}, which lists them raw values perfectly.
However, when I do that modification, the form submitted is not written to database.
What am I missing?
UPDATE!
I have partly solved it by adding this into the Tag model:
def __str__(self):
return self.tag
but when it persists it on submit, it still saves it as:
<QuerySet [<Tag: jenkins>]>
So, how and where do I strip only the specific tag values to be inserted in the database?
Many Thanks

Answer 1

Alright so there is a couple issues with your code, first off your main view:
Change it from this:
def main(request):
model = Task.objects.values().all() # calling values without specifying an argument makes no sense so just call it like **Task.objects.all()**
tags = Tag.objects.values().all() # same here
form = TaskForm() # don't call your form here it gets reassigned later anyways
con = {'context': list(model), 'form': form, 'tags': list(tags)} # don't define your context here since you are reasigning your form later so the form instance is always TaskForm()
if request.method == 'POST':
form = TaskForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.save()
return redirect('/')
else:
form = TaskForm()
return render(request, "tasks.html", con)
To this:
def main(request):
model = Task.objects.all()
tags = Tag.objects.all()
if request.method == 'POST':
form = TaskForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.save()
return redirect('/')
else:
form = TaskForm()
context = {'tasks': model,
'form': form,
'tags': tags}
return render(request, "tasks.html", con)
Then in your template pass your form with as_p method call:
{{ form.as_p }}
Hovewer the error you are getting is not because of your html or your view, it's because your tags field in your Task model is not a ManyToMany relationship to your Tag model but rather a simple CharacterField and you are trying to save objects to the CharField, so rewrite your Task model like this:
class Task(models.Model):
user = models.CharField(max_length=33)
time = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
task = models.CharField(max_length=500)
tags = models.ManyToMany(Tags)
Then your form should save them in the tags field of your Task instance and you can view them like this:
task = Task.objects.get(pk=1)
task_tags = task.tags.all() # stores a queryset of all tags of the queried task
and in the template:
{% for tag in task.tags.all %}
...
{% endfor %}

Answer 2

OK , I solved the POST data that is saved in database as Queryset, by extracting in the view where save() is called, the field 'tags' likewise:
f = form.save(commit=False)
f.tags = request.POST['tags']
form.save()
The only problem now is that I have multiple checkboxes in the form but this way it extracts only one of them, whilst I would expect it to return a list like what is printed in the request.POST : <QueryDict: {'csrfmiddlewaretoken': ['XV7HgTFiWXEnrkhqT3IsqUN2JbnT7YIH5r6fKgh2ehqeLsLMpvCPdUU4N2qwWuPk'], 'user': ['afa'], 'task': ['aff'], 'tags': ['jenkins', 'AKS']}> -> from that I call 'tags' but it saves only 'jenkins' ...
UPDATE
OK, I RTFM and saw that there is a method on the QueryDict object that can be passed to request.POST.getlist('tags') , so now it returns the complete value of 'tags' key.