Django Model Forms - Setting a required field

Question

 15 class Profile(models.Model):  16     """  17     User profile model  18     """  19     user = models.ForeignKey(User, unique=True)  20     country = models.CharField('Country', blank=True, null=True, default='',\  21                                max_length=50, choices=country_list())  22     is_active = models.BooleanField("Email Activated") 

I have a model like above with country set to blank=True, null=True.

However, in the form that is presented to the end user, I required the country field to be completed.

So I redefine the field in the Model Form like this to 'force' it to become required:

 77 class ProfileEditPersonalForm(forms.ModelForm):  78   79     class Meta:  80         model = Profile  81         fields = ('email',  82                   'sec_email',    83                   'image',  84                   'first_name',  85                   'middle_name',  86                   'last_name',  87                   'country',  88                   'number',  89                   'fax',)  90   98     country =  forms.ChoiceField(label='Country', choices = country_list()) 

So the country field is just an example (there are tons of them). Is there a better more DRY way of doing this?

Answer 1

You can modify the fields in __init__ in the form. This is DRY since the label, queryset and everything else will be used from the model. This can also be useful for overriding other things (e.g. limiting querysets/choices, adding a help text, changing a label, ...).

class ProfileEditPersonalForm(forms.ModelForm):         def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):         super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)         self.fields['country'].required = True      class Meta:         model = Profile         fields = (...) 

Here is a blog post that describes the same "technique": http://collingrady.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/useful-form-tricks-in-django/

Answer 2

In Django 3.0 if you for example want to make email required in user registration form, you can set required=True:

from django import forms from django.contrib.auth.models import User from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm   class MyForm(UserCreationForm):     email = forms.EmailField(required=True) # <- set here      class Meta:         model = User         fields = ['username', 'email', 'password1', 'password2']