Nrthugu

I've got a User model that has a foreign key and many to many relationship with another model.

class User(AbstractUser):

    '''

    Custom User model. Countries is a list of countries associated with the

    user. Home country is a single country object

    '''

    countries = models.ManyToManyField(

        Country, blank=True, related_name='user_countries'

        )

    home = models.ForeignKey(

        Country, on_delete=models.PROTECT, null=True,

        related_name='home_country',

        )

and

class Country(models.Model):

    '''

    Describes the countries, as well as territories of the world.

    '''

    name = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    top_level_domain = JSONField(null=True, blank=True)

    alpha2code = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    alpha3code = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    calling_codes = JSONField(null=True, blank=True)

    capital = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    alt_spellings = JSONField(null=True, blank=True)

    region = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    subregion = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    population = models.IntegerField(null=True, blank=True)

    latlng = JSONField(null=True, blank=True)

    demonym = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    area = models.FloatField(null=True, blank=True)

    gini = models.FloatField(null=True, blank=True)

    timezones = JSONField(null=True, blank=True)

    borders = JSONField(null=True, blank=True)

    native_name = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    numeric_code= models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    currencies = models.ManyToManyField(Currency)

    languages = models.ManyToManyField(Language)

    flag = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)

    regional_blocs = models.ManyToManyField(RegionalBloc, blank=True)

    cioc = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)



    def __str__(self):

        return self.name

The country model itself has a few many to many relationships, and so it is a nested object. When updating my user model with a PUT request, I can serialize my country object to just show the pk, and I can send the pk of the updated country/countries from my React axios request, but then when I axios GET my user object, it only displays country/countries.

On the otherhand, I can serialize my country objects as nested objects with all their fields and subfields, and then I get the data I want from an axios GET request, but then when I want to update my user object, I have to pass in a country object to my axios PUT instead of just a pk.

Is it possible serialize my country objects in their full nested beauty, BUT ALSO update/PUT my user model by just passing in the pk alone?

I'm updating my user object with select forms, and so it's easy to have an option with the value=pk, and then I can PUT request with just the value.

<option value="6">Andorra</option>

This is my custom User Detail serializer at the moment:

class UserDetailSerializer(UserDetailsSerializer):

    '''

    Custom serializer for the /rest-auth/user/ User Details Serializer.

    '''

    countries = CountrySerializer(many=True)

    home = serializers.SlugRelatedField(slug_field='pk', queryset=Country.objects.all())



    class Meta:

        model = User

        fields = ('pk', 'username', 'email', 'countries', 'home',)



    '''

    Updates the users object in the database. The username, email, countries(a

    list of country objects) and home (country object), are set by a PUT

    request from the frontend.

    '''

    def update(self, instance, validated_data):

        country_names = [cdata['name'] for cdata in validated_data['countries']]

        countries = Country.objects.filter(name__in=country_names)

        instance.username = validated_data['username']

        instance.email = validated_data['email']

        instance.countries.set(countries)

        instance.home = validated_data['home']

        instance.save()

        return instance

I'm serializing the home field by just the pk currently, which like I mentioned, makes it easy to PUT, but then in React the user object I GET has

home: 6

instead of

{

    "id": 6,

    "currencies": [

        {

            "code": "EUR",

            "name": "European Euro",

            "symbol": "€"

        }

    ],

    "languages": [

        {

            "iso639_1": "ca",

            "name": "Catalan",

            "native_name": "Català"

        }

    ],

    "regional_blocs": ,

    "name": "Andorra",

    "top_level_domain": [

        ".ad"

    ],

    "alpha2code": "AD",

    "alpha3code": "AND",

    "calling_codes": [

        "376"

    ],

    "capital": "Andorra la Vella",

    "alt_spellings": [

        "AD",

        "Principality of Andorra",

        "Principat d'Andorra"

    ],

    "region": "Europe",

    "subregion": "Southern Europe",

    "population": 78014,

    "latlng": [

        42.5,

        1.5

    ],

    "demonym": "Andorran",

    "area": 468.0,

    "gini": null,

    "timezones": [

        "UTC+01:00"

    ],

    "borders": [

        "FRA",

        "ESP"

    ],

    "native_name": "Andorra",

    "numeric_code": "020",

    "flag": "https://restcountries.eu/data/and.svg",

    "cioc": "AND"

}

I was able to overwrite the to_representation function in my serializer similar to these instructions: Django Rest Framework receive primary key value in POST and return model object as nested serializer