How to set up raw_id_fields in django-rest-framework?

Question

In Django admin, one can set up a raw_id_fields in order to have a search widget instead of a select box. This is very neat to spare up a lot of database queries when the foreign key table is huge.

What is the equivalent in the Django Rest Framework browsable views?

Answer 1

Django Rest Framework 3 no longer supports widget attribute on serializer field. But to get your browsable API even usable, try changing style attribute to use 'base_template': 'input.html' as in following example:

class CustomerAddressSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    customer = serializers.IntegerField(source='customer_id' style={'base_template': 'input.html', 'placeholder': "Customer ID"})
    class Meta:
        model = models.CustomerAddress
        fields = ('id', 'customer', 'street', 'zip', 'city')

This way your huge select tag with thousands foreign key options will change to simple text input. For more info check docs at http://www.django-rest-framework.org/topics/browsable-api/#handling-choicefield-with-large-numbers-of-items