Django Custom Form Field Property not Available in Template - django

Question

I'm writing a voting system that shows the number of votes for an option in the form.
I have Vote and Option models:
class Vote(models.Model):
user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE, blank=False, null=False)
option = models.ForeignKey(Option, on_delete=models.PROTECT, blank=False, null=False)
class Option(models.Model):
prompt = models.TextField(blank=False, null=False)
I wrote a simple custom form field to hold the current number of votes:
class VoteField(forms.BooleanField):
vote_count = 0
def __init__(self, *args, option, **kwargs):
self.vote_count = Vote.objects.filter(option=option).count()
super(VoteField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
I have a form to create a list of options to vote for:
class VoteForm(forms.BaseForm):
base_fields = {}
def __init__(self, *args, options, user, **kwargs):
for options in options:
field = VoteField(option=option)
field.label = option.prompt
self.base_fields["option" + str(option.pk)] = field
super(SurveyResponseForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
And I have a template to show the voting form:
{% for field in form %}
<div class="row">
<div class="col">
{{ field }}
</div>
<div class="col">
{{ field.label }}
</div>
<div class="col">
{{ field.vote_count }}
</div>
</div>
{% endfor %}
I populated the db with an option and some responses. In the shell it works as expected:
>>> option = Option.objects.get(pk=1)
>>> vote_field = VoteField(option=option)
>>> vote_field.vote_count
3
However, my template outputs nothing where I say to print vote_count:
<div class="row">
<div class="col">
<input type="checkbox" name="option-1" id="id_option-1">
</div>
<div class="col">
First Option
</div>
<div class="col">
</div>
</div>
Am I doing something wrong here?

Answer 1

The "fields" that are accessed via form.<field_name> or for field in form are actually instances of BoundField. These BoundField objects are a combination of the form data and the field defined on the Form class, they are not references to the field defined on the form
To access the actual field use field.field
{{ field.field.vote_count }}