rendering foreign field in django form - django

Question

I have a model where a field references a foreign key from another model as:
class DummyModel(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
description = models.CharField(max_length=150)
image_type = models.ForeignKey(ImageTypeModel) # Foreign key
class Meta:
db_table = "dummy"
The parent model is also simple:
class ImageTypeModel(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
dims = models.IntegerField()
class Meta:
db_table = "imagetypes"
Now, I attempt to render a record in a form and for that purpose I am using django-crispy-forms. So, I have:
class DummyForm(ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = DummyModel
fields = ['name', 'description', 'image_type']
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(DummyForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.helper = FormHelper(self)
self.helper.form_class = 'form-horizontal'
self.helper.label_class = 'col-sm-2'
self.helper.field_class = 'col-sm-10'
#self.helper.form_tag = False
self.helper.layout = Layout(
Field('name'),
Field('description'),
Field('image_type'))
The image_type field renders as a drop-down list which is perfect but instead of the name of the image types, the entries are all labelled ImageTypeModel. Is there a mechanism so that I can display the corresponding name from the ImageTypeModel record but when the form is saved it saves the primary key rather than the name.

Answer 1

You should implement the __unicode__ (python 2) or __str__ (python 3) method inside the model.
Like this:
class ImageTypeModel(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
dims = models.IntegerField()
class Meta:
db_table = "imagetypes"
# For Python 2
def __unicode__(self):
return self.name
# For Python 3
def __str__(self):
return self.name