How to handle multiple related objects (nesting within objects) - django

Question

Due to the way my database is designed, images are not stored with the project.
This is because there is no set amount of images per product. Some may have 1 image, others may have 10.
I would like my API to return content nested within itself. Currently, my code simply repeats the entire object when additional images exist for the item.
I am using Django Rest Framework:
class ProductDetailView(APIView):
renderer_classes = (JSONRenderer, )
def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
filters = {}
for key, value in request.GET.items():
key = key.lower()
if key in productdetailmatch:
lookup, val = productdetailmatch[key](value.lower())
filters[lookup] = val
qset = (
Product.objects
.filter(**filters)
.values('pk', 'brand')
.annotate(
image=F('variation__image__image'),
price=F('variation__price__price'),
name=F('variation__name'),
)
)
return Response(qset)
Currently, an item with 3 images pointing to it will look like this:
[{
"name": "Amplitiue jet black",
"brand": "Allup",
"price": "$1248",
"vari": "917439",
"image": "url1",
},
{
"name": "Amplitiue jet black",
"brand": "Allup",
"price": "$1248",
"vari": "917439",
"image": "url",
},
{
"name": "Amplitiue jet black",
"brand": "Allup",
"price": "$1248",
"vari": "917439",
"image": "url",
},
]
Ideally, it should look like this, combining all the images within an array:
{
"name": "Amplitiue jet black",
"brand": "Allup",
"price": "$1248",
"vari": "917439",
"images": [
"url1",
"url2"
"url3"
],
}

Answer 1

You should use a ListApiView together with a ModelSerializer. Don't put the filtering in the get method, the Django class based view way is to use get_queryset for that.
from rest_framework import serializers, generics
class ImageSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = Image
fields = ("url",)
class ProductSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
images = ImageSerializer(many=True)
class Meta:
model = Product
fields = ("name", "brand", "price", "vari", "images")
class ProductListView(generics.ListAPIView): # it is not a details view
serializer_class = ProductSerializer
def get_queryset(self):
filters = {}
for key, value in self.request.GET.items():
key = key.lower()
if key in productdetailmatch:
lookup, val = productdetailmatch[key](value.lower())
filters[lookup] = val
return Product.objects.prefetch_related("images").filter(**filters)
The image list in the JSON will be objects with one "url" element instead of just a list of urls, but this is more consistent with REST standards anyway.