django-rest-framework - autogenerate form in browsable API?

Question

Not sure if i'm using the right vocabulary. In the browsable api that comes for free with django-rest-framework, I was wondering if there was a way to autogenerate a form similar to how we define ModelForms. This would allow us to more easily test input to the API in some cases. I'm currently using ModelSerializers and the generic view APIView in case that makes a difference.

I have read the documentation (several times at this point) but didn't see it mentioned anywhere.

Answer 1

If you're using the generic class-based-views you'll get that for free. Try the live tutorial at http://restframework.herokuapp.com logging in as one of the users, so that you can create some snippets. eg user: 'max', password: 'max'.

Any views subclassing GenericAPIView and setting a serializer_class will get that behavior, as REST framework can determine what the form should look like.

For example:

(Note the form input at the bottom of the screen shot)

If you're just working from APIView you'll get the generic content input (such as json), like the once you've included a screenshot of, which is also useful, but not quite as convenient as the forms.

Answer 2

Create a serialiser class that fits the form input fields you want and set it on your APIView like so;

class MyView(APIView):
    serializer_class = MySerializer  # Used for the form in the browsable api

That works just perfectly.

Example of a serializer class based on a model:

from rest_framework import serializers

class MySerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = MyModel