Django Forms with get_or_create - django

Question

I am using Django ModelForms to create a form. I have my form set up and it is working ok.
form = MyForm(data=request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.save()
What I now want though is for the form to check first to see if an identical record exists. If it does I want it to get the id of that object and if not I want it to insert it into the database and then give me the id of that object. Is this possible using something like:
form.get_or_create(data=request.POST)
I know I could do
form = MyForm(instance=object)
when creating the form but this would not work as I still want to have the case where there is no instance of an object
edit:
Say my model is
class Book(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
author = models.CharField(max_length=50)
price = models.CharField(max_length=50)
I want a form which someone can fill in to store books. However if there is already a book in the db which has the same name, author and price I obviously don't want this record adding again so just want to find out its id and not add it.
I know there is a function in Django; get_or_create which does this but is there something similar for forms? or would I have to do something like
if form.is_valid():
f = form.save(commit=false)
id = get_or_create(name=f.name, author=f.author, price=f.price)
Thanks

Answer 1

I like this approach:
if request.method == 'POST':
form = MyForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
book, created = Book.objects.get_or_create(**form.cleaned_data)
That way you get to take advantage of all the functionality of model forms (except .save()) and the get_or_create shortcut.

Answer 2

You just need two cases in the view before the postback has occurred, something like
if id:
form = MyForm(instance=obj)
else
form = MyForm()
then you can call form.save() in the postback and Django will take care of the rest.

Answer 3

What do you mean by "if an identical record exists"? If this is a simple ID check, then your view code would look something like this:
if request.method == 'POST':
form = MyForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.save()
else:
if get_id:
obj = MyModel.objects.get(id=get_id)
form = MyForm(instance=obj)
else:
form = MyForm()
The concept here is the check occurs on the GET request, such that on the POST to save, Django will already have determined if this is a new or existing record.
If your check for an identical record is more complex, it might require shifting the logic around a bit.

Answer 4

I would do this -
if request.method == 'POST':
form = MyForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
name = form.cleaned_data['name']
author = form.cleaned_data['author']
price = form.cleaned_data['prince']
if name and author and price:
book, created = Book.objects.get_or_create(name=name, \
author=author, price=price)
if created:
# fresh entry in db.
else:
# already there, maybe update?
book.save()

Answer 5

Based on the answers and comments, I had to create a different solution for my case, which included the use of unique_together on the base model. You may find this code useful as well, as I actually made it fairly generic.
I have custom code in the form.save() method that I want to utilize for creating a new object, so I don't want to simply not use the form.save() call. I do have to put my code check in the form.save() method, which I think is a reasonable place to put it.
I have a utility function to flatten iterables.
def flatten(l, a=list()):
"""
Flattens a list. Just do flatten(l).
Disregard the a since it is used in recursive calls.
"""
for i in l:
if isinstance(i, Iterable):
flatten_layout(i, a)
else:
a.append(i)
return a
In the ModelForm, I overwrite the validate_unique() method:
def validate_unique(self):
pass
This is about what my save method looks like:
def save(self, commit=True):
unique_fields = flatten(MyObject._meta.unique_together)
unique_cleaned_data = {k: v for k, v in self.cleaned_data.items() if k in unique_fields}
# check if the object exists in the database based on unique data
try:
my_object = MyObject.objects.get(**unique_cleaned_data)
except MyObject.DoesNotExist:
my_object = super(MyModelFormAjax, self).save(commit)
# -- insert extra code for saving a new object here ---
else:
for data, value in self.cleaned_data.items():
if data not in unique_fields:
# only update the field if it has data; otherwise, retain
# the old value; you may want to comment or remove this
# next line
if value:
setattr(my_object, data, value)
if commit:
my_object.save()
return my_object