Nested API View of Django REST Framework? - django

Question

At the moment I developed the following code, for me to get the Contact List of each user. The views return the ID numbers of the Contacts of the User. I need to get, instead of the ID numbers, the 'name' and 'last_name' attribute of said contacts. I am quite new to Django's REST Framework and I'm not quite sure what to do next but I believe I have to nest the APIView. I would really appreciate some help!
views.py
def list_contacts(request, id_profile):
url = request.build_absolute_uri(reverse('api_users:contact_list', kwargs={'pk':id_profile}))
response = requests.get(url)
profile = Profile.objects.get(pk=id_profile)
if response.status_code == status.HTTP_200_OK:
data = response.content
user = json.loads(data)
return render(request, 'profiles/contact_list.html', {'user':user})
models.py
class Profile(models.Model):
id_user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
last_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
birthday = models.DateField(auto_now=False)
description = models.CharField(max_length=100)
profile_picture = models.ImageField(upload_to='images/profiles/%Y/%m/%d', blank=False)
active = models.BooleanField(default = False)
contacts = models.ManyToManyField('self', blank=True, default='null')
created_at = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)
updated_at = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)
deleted_at = models.DateTimeField(blank=True, null=True)
class Meta:
ordering = ('-id',)
def __str__(self):
return self.name+' '+self.last_name
def active_profiles():
return Profile.objects.filter(active=True)
api/views.py
class ContactListView(generics.ListAPIView):
queryset = Profile.objects.all()
serializer_class = UserContactListSerializer
filter_backends = (filters.SearchFilter,)
search_fields = ('name', 'last_name',)
def get(self, request, pk, format=None):
contacts = Profile.objects.get(pk=pk)
serializer = UserContactListSerializer(contacts)
return Response(serializer.data)
api/serializers.py
class UserContactListSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = Profile
fields = ['name','last_name','contacts']

Answer 1

I don't know what exactly is going on in your list_contacts but if you want to use the same serializer as a field in itself, you currently can't.
While Django models allow you to use 'self' as the reference, DRF doesn't.
What you can instead do is create another serializer and use that as the field.
class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = Profile
fields = ("id", "first_name", "last_name")
class UserContactListSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
contacts = UserSerializer(many=True)
class Meta:
model = Profile
fields = ("id", "first_name", "last_name", "contacts")