Return QuerySet as JSON?

Question

I'm working in Django 1.8 and having trouble finding the modern way to do this.

This is what I've got, based on Googling and this blog post:

results = PCT.objects.filter(code__startswith='a')
json_res = []
for result in results:
    json_res.append(result.as_dict())
return HttpResponse(json.dumps(json_res), content_type='application/json')

However this gives me 'PCT' object has no attribute 'as_dict'.

Surely there must be a neater way by now?

I was wondering if it was possible to use JSONResponse but frustratingly, the docs give no example of how to use JSONRespose with a queryset, which must be the most common use case. I have tried this:

results = PCT.objects.filter(code__startswith='a')
return JsonResponse(results, safe=False)

This gives [<PCT: PCT object>, <PCT: PCT object>] is not JSON serializable.

Answer 1

Simplest solution without any additional framework:

results = PCT.objects.filter(code__startswith='a').values('id', 'name')
return JsonResponse({'results': list(results)})

returns {'results': [{'id': 1, 'name': 'foo'}, ...]}

or if you only need the values:

results = PCT.objects.filter(code__startswith='a').values_list('id', 'name')
return JsonResponse({'results': list(results)})

returns {'results': [[1, 'foo'], ...]}