How can I delete form field data in django after submit - django

Question

I'm working on a django project where during registration, a user can submit a code to get special discounts. The validation of the discount codes is already working nicely, but I'm missing one beautifying aspect: After the user submits an invalid code I want to empty out the input field; i.e.:
def validate_code(value):
# check code for validity or raise ValidationError
class CodeForm(forms.Form):
code = forms.CharField(validators=[validate_code])
# in my views.py
def code_verification_view(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
form = CodeForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
# proceed with given code
else:
# modify form to return an empty html input for the code field
# this is where I'm stuck
form.fields['code'].value = ''
# ... render the form in a template
The end result should be a form with an empty input field, but the validation errors showing. The behavior should be similar to how password input fields are emptied if the form verification fails.
EDIT: I solved the problem, but in a very hacky way:
see https://stackoverflow.com/a/46564834/8572938
I'd appreciate a proper solution that does not rely on accessing protected members of the form.

Answer 1

the key is to reset form variable
form = CodeForm(None)
in your code
def code_verification_view(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
form = CodeForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
# proceed with given code
else:
form = CodeForm(None)

Answer 2

Just render your template, if your form is not valid, it will show error, In case if it is valid process your data
def code_verification_view(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
form = CodeForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
// process your data
else:
form.data['field'] = None
return render(request, template_name, {'form': form})

Answer 3

Make a field validation in your form definition:
class CodeForm(forms.Form):
code = forms.CharField(validators=[validate_code])
def clean_code(self):
code = self.cleaned_data(code)
error = # some of your process
if error:
self.fields['code'] = None
raise forms.ValidationError('...')
else:
return code
And remove the else part in your view, instead you want to do something else. If you just want to display the form with error, the raise forms.ValidationError will do it.
You can in django form add a clean_<field_name> to control each field as you like.
More info here

Answer 4

I found a way that works, but it's quite dirty:
old_form = CodeForm(request.POST)
form = CodeForm()
if old_form.is_valid():
# ...
else:
form._errors = old_form._errors
# pass form into the rendering context
This way, I get a clean form with the preserved errors.
While it does the job, it is clearly an ugly hack.