Hidden data in a form, but PrimaryKey or ForeignKey - django

Question

I have a view that edits an instance of model Foo. It's either called with one arg (form post) or three args (initial request to edit the object):
def edit_it(request, key1_id=-1, key2_id=-1):
where key1_id and key2_id identify the particular instance to edit. On entry, I check to see if I've been called from a form post or from a link
if request.method == 'POST':
key1_id = request.key1_id # first thing that doesn't work
key2_id = request.key2_id # (also doesn't work)
foo = Foo.objects.get(key1=key1_id, key2=key2_id)
form = Foo(request.POST, instance=foo)
...
else:
foo = Foo.objects.get(key1=key1_id, key2=key2_id)
form = Foo(instance=foo)
In my template, I explicitly insert <input type="hidden" ... > for key1_id and key2_id. So it seems reasonable that key1_id and key2_id should be in request.POST somewhere, but I've not found it poking through code, docs, and google.
Or am I completely confused and I should do this differently? I tried specifying the key[12]_id fields in the model with "widget=forms.HiddenInput", but widget doesn't work here: key1_id is a primary key and key2_id is ForeignKey whose job is just to avoid fishing for other people's objects by modifying key1_id in the URL.
The html that results (now slightly modified thanks to the suggestion to maintain the args to the post) is this:
<table>
<form action="/seededit/u=2/sh=14" method="post">
<div style='display:none'>
<input type='hidden' name='csrfmiddlewaretoken'
value='19a559c496e637cdbf3132ce8e147cc4' /></div>
[...]
<tr>
<td><input type="hidden" name="user_id" value="2" />
<input type="hidden" name="shareable_id" value="14" /></td>
<td><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="submit" /></td>
</tr>
</form>
</table>
</p>

Answer 1

It's not request.key2_id It's request.POST['key2_id]` request.POST is a QueryDict that acts like a dictionary, so print request.POST will show you a dictionary.
That being said, you can still use/define those fileds as HiddenInput and then use django's form validation to make sure that they are the right type/exist etc. There are loads of options when it comes to handling forms, request variables, and validation.