How can I turn Django Model objects into a dictionary and still have their foreign keys? [duplicate]

Question

obj = get_object_or_404(CustomModel,id=some_id)
my_dict = obj.__dict__

How about:

model_to_dict(instance, fields=[field.name for field in instance._meta.fields])

By explicitly naming all of the fields, it should give you the foreign key ids at least (although I haven't verified).

Note that this function does not return fields with editable=False (since it is intended for forms).

I think I had the same need as you -- I wanted a plain-and-simple dict representation of an object. the other answers posted (at the time I write) wouldn't give me that, and the serializers, while useful for their purpose, produce output with extra info I don't want, and an inconvenient structure.

Though admittedly a hack, this is giving me good mileage:

from django.core import serializers

def obj_to_dict(model_instance):
    serial_obj = serializers.serialize('json', [model_instance])
    obj_as_dict = json.loads(serial_obj)[0]['fields']
    obj_as_dict['pk'] = model_instance.pk
    return obj_as_dict

wrapping the django_model_object in a list, then accessing item 0 after parsing the json is needed because, for some reason, serializers can only serialize iterables of model objects (weird).

You'd need some extra gears to handle any kind of foreign key fields, I may post back if I end up needing to write that (unless someone else edits it in first!).

HTH for now.