Django dynamic formset forms

Question

Hi I have a site which outputs a user results as a table of parts and quantities. User interaction on the page can result in a variable number of rows (parts) in the table.

I need to save this list of parts against the user, so I believe formsets are the best way to handle this:

forms.py

class UserBuildForm(forms.Form):
    part = forms.CharField()
    part_quantity = forms.IntegerField()

views.py

from django.forms.formsets import formset_factory
from tool.forms import UserBuildForm

def my_view(request):
    ...
    UserBuildFormSet = formset_factory(UserBuildForm)
    formset = UserBuildFormSet()
    ...

My idea is to wrap the form fields in the table html so that a parts column and quantity column are actually inputs (though only the quantity should be user-editable). This way each row is actually a form.

Now, my ajax function works by appending and removing rows to the table.Can I add extra form fields as just plain html?

How should I handle these dynamic number of forms? I know you can specify the number of formsets using extra but the number of forms I will need to validate are unknown.

Also - is this the best approach to this typical method of saving user product data?

Any help much appreciated.

Answer 1

• You can add/delete form fields using jquery
• Number of forms is stored in hidden input "id_formname_TOTAL-FORMS

• Just iterate over forms in views.py to handle data:

  for form in formset.forms: form.save()

Here is excellet tutorial, which show you how to handle with adding/deleting form fields (jquery): http://stellarchariot.com/blog/2011/02/dynamically-add-form-to-formset-using-javascript-and-django/