pre-populating partial Initial data in a Django formset - django

Question

I’m having difficulty implementing initial data in my django formset.
For context, I’m building an attendance app where a list of students exist and need to be assessed for attendance every day.
What I’m trying to do is have an administrator click on a link which has a date listed on it. They will then be taken to data grid where each row represents the number of students in the system along with 4 columns (student name, date, present/absent drop down, a notes field). The goal is to have the student name field be pre-populated with the the list of students in the Student model, the date field be pre-populated with the date on the link the user clicked and the attendance and notes fields be user inputs.
Any help would be much appreciated
Thanks!
—
Student model
class Student(models.Model):
first_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
last_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
GENDER_CHOICES = (
('male', 'male'),
('female', 'female'),
)
gender = models.CharField(max_length=12, choices=GENDER_CHOICES, null=False, blank=False)
date_of_birth = models.DateField(auto_now=False, auto_now_add=False)
#property
def full_name(self):
return ''.join([self.first_name, '_', self.last_name])
def __unicode__(self):
return self.full_name
Attendance model
class Attendance(models.Model):
student = models.ForeignKey('students.Student')
attendance_date = models.DateField(auto_now=False, auto_now_add=False)
STATUS_CHOICES = (
('present', ‘1’),
('absent', ‘0’),
)
status = models.CharField(max_length=12, choices=STATUS_CHOICES, null=False, blank=False)
notes = models.CharField(max_length=300, null=True, blank=True)
class Meta:
unique_together = ("student", "attendance_date")
def __unicode__(self):
return self.student
Attendance form
class AttendanceForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = Attendance
fields = ["student","attendance_date", "status", "notes"]
View
def add_attendance(request):
s = Student.objects.all().values()
AttendanceFormSet = formset_factory(AttendanceForm, extra=0)
formset = AttendanceFormSet(request.POST or None, initial=s)
if formset.is_valid():
try:
instance = form.save(commit=False)
instance.save()
return HttpResponseRedirect('/')
except:
return HttpResponseRedirect('/')
context = {
"formset": formset,
}
return render(request, "group_attendance.html", context)
Template
<table id="formset" class="form">
{{ formset.management_form }}
{% for form in formset.forms %}
{% if forloop.first %}
<thead><tr>
{% for field in form.visible_fields %}
<th>{{ field.label|capfirst }}</th>
{% endfor %}
</tr></thead>
{% endif %}
<tr>
{% for field in form.visible_fields %}
<td>
{# Include the hidden fields in the form #}
{% if forloop.first %}
{% for hidden in form.hidden_fields %}
{{ hidden }}
{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
{{ field.errors.as_ul }}
{{ field }}
</td>
{% endfor %}
</tr>
{% endfor %}
</table>

Answer 1

I'm not really sure, if I understood your question the intended way. I think you're looking for a way to generate dynamic forms, which were pre-filled with data from the db.
A really helpful article about that, can be found here https://jacobian.org/writing/dynamic-form-generation/
You don't have a fixed numbers of students (-> fields in form), so you have to generate as many fields as needed. So you have to iterate over the students and create a form field for every single one.
You can find this in the article above. Just down below is a code snippet and an explanation of it:
class UserCreationForm(forms.Form):
username = forms.CharField(max_length=30)
password1 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput)
password2 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput)
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
extra = kwargs.pop('extra')
super(UserCreationForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
for i, question in enumerate(extra):
self.fields['custom_%s' % i] = forms.CharField(label=question)