DRF ListSerializer and ListField - django

Question

I use django rest in my project and until now for list of objects I used ListSerializer, when I needed to have min length and max length of list I googled and reached to ListField.
Before that my code worked fined without any error and misbehavior. Now I use ListField for my list field serializer, But I didn't get when to use ListSerializer? Can someone explain the difference between ListSerializer and FieldSerializer?
My sample code with ListSerializer:
tags = serializers.ListSerializer(child=serializers.CharField(allow_blank=False), required=False)
My sample code with ListField:
open_hour = serializers.ListField(child=serializers.DictField(), max_length=7, min_length=7)

Answer 1

Disclaimer: This answer is not complete
Can someone explain the difference between ListSerializer and
FieldSerializer?
I assume the question is difference between serializers.ListSerializer and serializers.ListField
Suppose we have two models as
class Musician(models.Model):
first_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
last_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
instrument = models.CharField(max_length=100)
def __str__(self):
return f'{self.first_name} {self.last_name}'
class Album(models.Model):
artist = models.ForeignKey(Musician, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
release_date = models.DateField()
num_stars = models.IntegerField()
def __str__(self):
return f'{self.name} : {self.artist}'
and serializer as
class AlbumSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
artist = serializers.StringRelatedField()
class Meta:
fields = '__all__'
model = Album
class MusicianSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
AlbumSerializer(many=True, source='album_set')
class Meta:
fields = '__all__'
model = Musician
ListSerializer
As stated in official DRF doc
When a serializer is instantiated and many=True is passed, a
ListSerializer instance will be created. The serializer class then
becomes a child of the parent ListSerializer
For example, we could re-write the MusicianSerializer with ListSerializer as
class MusicianSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
albums = serializers.ListSerializer(child=AlbumSerializer(), source='album_set')
class Meta:
fields = '__all__'
model = Musician
it would produce the results same as before. But, if we are trying to use ListField instead of ListSerializer It will raise an error
'RelatedManager' object is not iterable
When I checked the source code, I found that both ListSerializer and ListField are inherited from the same class (parent and grand parent are same)

Answer 2

I ran into this same problem and I believe I found a solution!
The trick is you need to create a new Serializer that inherits the ListSerializer class and override the to_representation() method to output your desired format.
If you look at the DRF source code for ListSerializer you can see the default to_representation() method looks like the following...
def to_representation(self, data):
"""
List of object instances -> List of dicts of primitive datatypes.
"""
# Dealing with nested relationships, data can be a Manager,
# so, first get a queryset from the Manager if needed
iterable = data.all() if isinstance(data, models.Manager) else data
return [
self.child.to_representation(item) for item in iterable
]
Example
models
class Musician(models.Model):
first_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
last_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
instrument = models.CharField(max_length=100)
def __str__(self):
return f'{self.first_name} {self.last_name}'
class Album(models.Model):
artist = models.ForeignKey(Musician, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
release_date = models.DateField()
num_stars = models.IntegerField()
def __str__(self):
return f'{self.name} : {self.artist}'
serializers
class AlbumSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
artist = serializers.StringRelatedField()
class Meta:
fields = '__all__'
model = Album
class AlbumKeyValueSerializer(serializers.ListSerializer):
def to_representation(self, data):
reaction_count_set = {}
for item in data.all():
reaction_count_set[item.name] = item.artist
return reaction_count_set
class MusicianSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
AlbumKeyValueSerializer(child=AlbumSerializer(), source='album_set')
class Meta:
fields = '__all__'
model = Musician