Overriding Serializer's update() Function Fails - django

Question

I have a view that calls patch()
class ValidateResetPasswordView(views.APIView):
def patch(self, request, token):
serializer = ValidateResetPasswordRequestSerializer(instance=request.user, data=request.data, partial=True)
serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
serializer.save()
.
.
.
etc
My serializer overrides update() to encrypt the password as
class ValidateResetPasswordRequestSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
password = serializers.CharField(max_length=128, required=True, allow_blank=False, allow_null=False,
write_only=True)
def update(self, instance, validated_data):
instance.set_password(validated_data.get("password"))
instance.save()
return instance
My serializer doesn't catch empty requests. For example, if a client sends out an empty json, my patch() gets processed successfully given no key was provided.
{
}
I expect to get an error that says password is required, or the like. To prevent this issue, I had to manually validate whether a key exists or not within update() function as follows.
class ValidateResetPasswordRequestSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
password = serializers.CharField(max_length=128, required=True, allow_blank=False, allow_null=False,
write_only=True)
def update(self, instance, validated_data):
if len(validated_data) == 0: # force validation
raise serializers.ValidationError(
'Password is required')
validated_data.get("password")
instance.set_password(validated_data.get("password"))
instance.save()
return instance
Am I violating any coding standards in here. Is there a better, correct, way to validate against empty requests?

Answer 1

You are doing it right with writing the Validator Serializer. There is no need for update(), you just need to validate incoming data in your view. So, your validator is going to look like this (though I suggest using min_length for password validation):
class ValidateResetPasswordRequestSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
password = serializers.CharField(max_length=128, required=True, allow_blank=False, allow_null=False,
write_only=True)
The way to integrate it with your view:
class ResetPasswordView(CreateAPIView):
serializer_class = ValidateResetPasswordRequestSerializer
def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
serializer = self.serializer_class(data=request.data)
if serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
# update password here and return status code 200
You set your serializer to be ValidateResetPasswordRequestSerializer, you pass request data to it by saying self.serializer_class(data=request.data) and then you check if recieved data is valid with serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True). If data is not valid Django will raise an exceptions since flag is set to True with relevant message to user (something like 'Password is required', 'Blank is not allowed' etc).