[Django rest framework]: Serialize a list of strings

Question

I am working with django and djando rest framework

I have created a new endpoint installedapps. When making GET requests to it, I want to return the data contained as a list of strings (list of installed apps)

The list of strings looks something like this:

installed_apps = ['django_admin_bootstrapped', 'django.contrib.admin', 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', 'django.contrib.humanize', 'django.contrib.sessions', 'django.contrib.messages', 'django.contrib.staticfiles', 'rest_framework', 'django_js_reverse', 'djcelery', 'bootstrap3', 'foo', 'bar', 'apirest']

Until now I have only worked with model serializers, and everything was pretty easy. But now i dont know how to return this list of strings

This is what I have tried so far:

class InstalledAppsViewSet(viewsets.ViewSet):
    serializer_class = serializers.InstalledAppsSerializer

    def list(self, request):
        from credits.views import GetInstalledApps

        installed_apps = GetInstalledApps.get_installed_apps()

        serializer = serializers.InstalledAppsSerializer(
            instance=installed_apps, many=True)

        return Response(serializer.data)




class InstalledAppsSerializer(serializers.ListField):

    name = serializers.CharField(max_length=256)

    child = serializers.CharField()

    installed_apps_field = serializers.SerializerMethodField(
        'get_installed_apps')

I am always getting all kind of errors. Any help on how to return the content of the list of strings?

Update

I have tried @e4c5 code, leaving it like this:

class InstalledAppsViewSet(viewsets.ViewSet):
    serializer_class = serializers.InstalledAppsSerializer

    def list(self, request):

        serializer = serializers.InstalledAppsSerializer


class InstalledAppsSerializer(serializers.Serializer):

    name = serializers.CharField(max_length=256)

    child = serializers.CharField()

    installed_apps = serializers.SerializerMethodField('get_the_installed_apps')


    def get_the_installed_apps(self):
        from credits.views import GetInstalledApps
        installed_apps = GetInstalledApps.get_installed_apps()

        return installed_apps

And I'm still getting errors. But I don't get the error message anywhere. Any help?

Answer 1

You could use the serializers.ListField,

ListField is a field class that validates a list of objects.

The ListField class also supports a declarative style that allows you to write reusable list field classes.

You could write a custom field for serializer inheriting from ListField form the drf serializers which accepts list of strings. Maybe like this, this example is already shown in the DRF docs.

class StringListField(serializers.ListField):
    child = serializers.CharField()

We can now reuse our custom StringListField class throughout our application, without having to provide a child argument to it.

These are from the docs, I haven't tried it yet. But hope you get what you looking for.

You could use the custom field in your serializer like,

class InstalledAppsSerializer(serializers.Serializer):

    name = serializers.CharField(max_length=256)

    child = serializers.CharField()

    installed_apps_field = StringListField()

Answer 2

it works for serialize a list of strings

class MySerializer(serializers.Serializer):
    installed_apps = serializers.ListSerializer(child=serializers.CharField())

it return

['django_admin_bootstrapped', 'django.contrib.admin', 'django.contrib.auth', 'django.contrib.contenttypes', 'django.contrib.humanize', 'django.contrib.sessions', 'django.contrib.messages', 'django.contrib.staticfiles', 'rest_framework', 'django_js_reverse', 'djcelery', 'bootstrap3', 'foo', 'bar', 'apirest']