Avoid nested objects when using nested serializers - django

Question

I have two models, one contains the other in a foreignKey relationship, I wanted to make an API that would return the combine of these two models, so I attempted to use nested Serializers to add the related model as well, but the data are not all on the same level, the related models is a object inside the first.
Here are the Models
class ModelOne(models.Model):
last_counter = models.IntegerField()
class ModelTwo(models.Model):
model_one = models.ForeignKey(ModelOne, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
category = models.CharField(max_length=64)
counter_type = models.CharField(max_length=32)
Here are the serializers
class ModelOneSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = ModelOne
fields = "__all__"
class ModelTwoSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
model_one= ModelOneSerializer(read_only=True)
class Meta:
model = ModelTwo
fields = "__all__"
This would return from the API in the form of
{
"category" : ...,
"counter_type" : ...,
"model_one" : {
"last_counter" : ...
}
}
But I don't want the response to be like that, I want it more like this
{
"category" : ...,
"counter_type" : ...,
"last_counter" : ...,
}
Is there a way to achieve this through serializers?

Answer 1

Use SerializerMethodField
from rest_framework.fields import SerializerMethodField
class ModelTwoSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
last_counter = SerializerMethodField()
class Meta:
model = ModelTwo
fields = "__all__"
def get_last_counter(self, obj):
return ModelOneSerializer(obj.model_one).data['last_counter']
When creating custom fields(field_one for example) with SerializerMethodField, you have to create a method called get_field_one, for this method to be automatically detected by the serializer.

Answer 2

You can achieve what you want to do using SerializerMethodField from drf fields:
SerializerMethodField is a read-only field that computes its value at request processing time, by calling a method on the serializer class it is attached to. For example for your case it will look like this. Notice that the computed last_counter is added on the serialized model fields.
from rest_framework.fields import SerializerMethodField
class ModelTwoSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
last_counter = serializers.SerializerMethodField()
class Meta:
model = ModelTwo
fields = ["category", "counter_type", "last_counter"]
def get_last_counter(self, obj):
return int(obj.model_one.last_counter)
SerializerMethodField accepts method_name, but it’s usually more convenient to use the default pattern for naming those methods, which is get_. Just make sure you‘re not overburdening your method fields with any heavy-lifting operations.
You can read more on the official documentation:enter link description here