Call post function of a class based view using formview - django

Question

I am new to django class based views and may be the way I am approaching this is a little naive, so I would appreciate if you could suggest a better way.
So my problem is here:
There are three types of users in my project. 1. Student, 2. Teacher, 3. Parent. I need to be able to show different user settings pertaining to each type of user when the user requests the settings page in their respective forms. Also, I need to be able to save the data into the respective tables as the user submits the form.
I have a class based view (UserSettingsView):
class UserSettingsView(LoginRequiredMixin, FormView):
success_url = '.'
template_name = 'accts/usersettings.html'
def get_initial(self):
if self.request.user.is_authenticated():
user_obj = get_user_model().objects.get(email=self.request.user.email)
if user_obj.profile.is_student:
return {
'first_name': user_obj.profile.first_name,
'last_name': user_obj.profile.last_name,
""" and other student field variables """
}
if user_obj.profile.is_teacher:
return {
""" Teacher field variables """
}
else:
return render_to_response('allauth/account/login.html')
def form_valid(self, form):
messages.add_message(self.request, messages.SUCCESS, 'Settings Saved!')
return super(UserSettingsView, self).form_valid(form)
def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
context = super(UserSettingsView, self).get_context_data(**kwargs)
context['user'] = get_user_model().objects.get(email=self.request.user.email)
context['userprofile'] = UserProfile.objects.get(user_id=context['user'])
return context
def post(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
form_class = self.get_form_class()
form = self.get_form(form_class)
form.full_clean()
if form.is_valid():
user = request.user
user.profile.first_name = form.cleaned_data['first_name']
user.profile.last_name = form.cleaned_data['last_name']
user.profile.save()
if user.profile.is_student:
""" update student database """
user.save()
user.student.save()
if user.profile.is_teacher:
""" update teacher database """
user.save()
user.teacher.save()
return self.form_valid(form)
else:
return self.form_invalid(form)
Different instances of Usersettings view are called using the pick_settings generic view.
url(regex=r'^profilesettings/',view=pick_settings,name='profilesettings'),
And here is the pick_settings view:
def pick_settings(request):
if request.user.is_authenticated():
if request.method == 'GET':
if request.user.profile.is_student:
return UserSettingsView.as_view(form_class=StudentSettingsForm)(request)
if request.user.profile.is_teacher:
return UserSettingsView.as_view(form_class=TeacherSettingsForm)(request)
if request.user.profile.is_parent:
return UserSettingsView.as_view(form_class=ParentSettingsForm)(request)
else:
if request.method == 'POST':
"""
return ***<--- I need to know what to pass here to be able to call the appropriate post function of the UserSettingsView?---->"""***
else:
return HttpResponseRedirect('/accounts/login/')
I need to be able to call the post function of the UserSettingsView. May be using the get_context_data? But I am not sure how.
Again it will be great, if someone could suggest a better way because I am pretty sure this might be violating the DRY principle. Although, I am not too concerned with that as long as the job gets done as I am running a deadline. :) Thanks!

Answer 1

FormView has a method get_form_class(). It is called from get() and post(), so self.request will already be set (as will be self.request.user). Consequently,
class UserSettingsView(LoginRequiredMixin, FormView):
[...]
def get_form_class(self):
# no need to check is_authenticated() as we have LoginRequiredMixin
if request.user.profile.is_student:
return StudentSettingsForm
elif user.profile.is_teacher:
return TeacherSettingsForm
elif user.profile.is_parent:
return ParentSettingsForm
This should already to the trick as you get the correct form for each user type.
If you also need to render different templates, override get_template_names():
def get_template_names(self):
if request.user.profile.is_student:
return ['myapp/settings/student.html']
elif user.profile.is_teacher:
return ['myapp/settings/teacher.html']
elif user.profile.is_parent:
return ['myapp/settings/parent.html']
DRY can be achieved using proper inheritance in the templates combining common template fragments.
And lest I forget (I already forgot): To get rid of the if in the post() method of your view, simple override the save() method of you forms which I assume are ModelForms, anyway.