Django - Adding initial value to a formset - django

Question

I have a many-to-many relationship between two classes (Lesson and Student), with an intermediary class (Evaluation).
I am trying to set up a form which will allow me to add a lesson with students and the related evaluation data. I can get all of the fields I want to display correctly, however I also need to set an initial value behind the scenes (the current user), as it does not make sense to have it in the form.
I have tried following the docs but I think I have a syntax error in the way I am passing the data to the formset.
The error I receive is as follows:
__init__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'initial'
My actual view (with my attempt at adding the initial data removed) looks like this:
def addlesson(request):
LessonFormset = inlineformset_factory(Lesson, Evaluation, exclude=('user',), max_num=5)
if request.method == 'POST':
lesson = Lesson(user=request.user)
form = LessonForm(request.POST, instance=lesson, user = request.user)
formset = LessonFormset(request.POST, instance = lesson)
if form.is_valid() and formset.is_valid():
form.save()
formset.save()
return HttpResponseRedirect("/")
else:
form = LessonForm(user = request.user)
formset = LessonFormset()
return render_to_response("addlesson.html", {
'form': form,
'formset' : formset,
}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
Could anyone show me to correct syntax to use to set the current user in the formset?
This is what I had before but it was giving me the error at the start of my post:
initial={'user': request.user},
Any advice appreciated
Thanks

Answer 1

It's not clear to me why you are using a formset when it looks like you only want to add one row. A regular form would have been how I would do it if there was only one row. But, here's how I set the default value in a formset.
I exclude the field, just like you already have in your code. Then:
if form.is_valid() and formset.is_valid():
form.save()
models = formset.save(commit=False)
for i in models:
i.user = request.user
i.save()
return HttpResponseRedirect("/")

Answer 2

I tried Umang's answer and it didn't work good for when you want to change a value with a specific index. When you save the formset it will change the values that was changed.
But if you change models = formset.save(commit=False) to models = formset
and then you also need to change i.user = request.user to i.instance.user = request.user
if form.is_valid() and formset.is_valid():
form.save()
# changed to formset instead of formset.save(commit=False)
models = formset
for model in models:
# changed to i.instance.user instead of i.user, except renamed i to model.
model.instance.user = request.user
model.save()
# save the formset
formset.save()
return HttpResponseRedirect("/")
Now when you want to change an index it will include all the forms, not only the ones that was changed when you save.
Example:
views.py
if form.is_valid() and formset.is_valid():
form.save()
models = formset
index = 0
# This will only change the first form in the formset.
models[index].instance.user = request.user
models.save()
formset.save()
return HttpResponseRedirect("/")