Render form errors with the label rather than field name

Question

I would like to list all form errors together using {{ form.errors }} in the template. This produces a list of form fields and nested lists of the errors for each field. However, the literal name of the field is used. The generated html with an error in a particular field might look like this.

<ul class="errorlist">
    <li>
        target_date_mdcy
        <ul class="errorlist">
            <li>This field is required.</li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>

I would like use the errorlist feature, as it's nice and easy. However, I want to use the label ("Target Date", say) rather than the field name. Actually, I can't think of a case in which you would want the field name displaying for the user of a webpage. Is there way to use the rendered error list with the field label?

Answer 1

I don't see a simple way to do this.

The errors attribute of the form actually returns an ErrorDict, a class defined in django.forms.utils - it's a subclass of dict that knows to produce that ul rendering of itself as its unicode representation. But the keys are actually the field names, and that's important to maintain for other behavior. So it provides no easy access to the field labels.

You could define a custom template tag that accepts the form to produce the rendering you prefer, since in Python code it's easy to get the field label given the form and the field name. Or you could construct an error list by label in the view, add it to your context, and use that instead.

edit Alternately again, you can iterate over the fields and check their individual errors, remembering to display non_field_errors as well. Something like:

<ul class="errorlist">
  {% if form.non_field_errors %}
    <li>{{ form.non_field_errors }}</li>
  {% endif %}
  {% for field in form %}
    {% if field.errors %}
      <li>
        {{ field.label }}
        <ul class="errorlist">
          {% for error in field.errors %}
            <li>{{ error }}</li>
          {% endfor %}
        </ul>
      </li>
    {% endif %}
  {% endfor %}
</ul>

You might want to wrap non_field_errors in a list as well, depending.