Django TextField and CharField is stripping spaces and blank lines

Question

I just researched my "bug" and it turned out to be a new feature in Django 1.9 that CharFields strip spaces by default : https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/forms/fields/#django.forms.CharField.strip

The same seams to apply to text fields TextField.

So I found out why Django suddenly behaves differently than before, but is there an easy way to restore the previous default for auto generated admin forms?

I would like to NOT strip spaces while still using the auto generated form from the admin. Is that still possible?

Answer 1

If you are looking for a text/char field and do not want it to strip white spaces you can set strip=False in the constructor method of a form and then use the form in the admin

class YourForm(forms.ModelForm):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(YourForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['myfield'].strip = False

    class Meta:
        model = YourModel
        fields = "__all__"

You can then use this form in the admin by specifying form=YourForm in the admin.py file.

Answer 2

Try using this:

# fields.py
from django.db.models import TextField


class NonStrippingTextField(TextField):
    """A TextField that does not strip whitespace at the beginning/end of
    it's value.  Might be important for markup/code."""

    def formfield(self, **kwargs):
        kwargs['strip'] = False
        return super(NonStrippingTextField, self).formfield(**kwargs)

And in your model:

class MyModel(models.Model):
    # ...
    my_field = NonStrippingTextField()