Django|SerializedDataField

Custom Fields in Django | David Cramer's Blog

Custom Fields in Django

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I was helping someone today in the Django IRC channel and the question came across about storing a denormalized data set in a single field. Typically I do such things by either serializing the data, or by separating the values with a token (comma for example).

Django has a built-in field type for CommaSeparatedIntegerField, but most of the time I'm storing strings, as I already have the integers available elsewhere. As I began to answer the person's question by giving him an example of usage of serialization + custom properties, until I realized that it would be much easier to just write this as a Field subclass.

So I quickly did, and replaced a few lines of repetitive code with two new field classes in our source:

Update: There were some issues with my understanding of how the metaclass was working. I've corrected the code and it should function properly now.

SerializedDataField

This field is typically used to store raw data, such as a dictionary, or a list of items, or could even be used for more complex objects.

 from django.db import models   try:     import cPickle as pickle except:     import pickle   import base64   class SerializedDataField(models.TextField):     """Because Django for some reason feels its needed to repeatedly call     to_python even after it's been converted this does not support strings."""     __metaclass__ = models.SubfieldBase       def to_python(self, value):         if value is None: return         if not isinstance(value, basestring): return value         value = pickle.loads(base64.b64decode(value))         return value       def get_db_prep_save(self, value):         if value is None: return         return base64.b64encode(pickle.dumps(value))

SeparatedValuesField

An alternative to the CommaSeparatedIntegerField, it allows you to store any separated values. You can also optionally specify a token parameter.

 from django.db import models   class SeparatedValuesField(models.TextField):     __metaclass__ = models.SubfieldBase       def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):         self.token = kwargs.pop('token', ',')         super(SeparatedValuesField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)       def to_python(self, value):         if not value: return         if isinstance(value, list):             return value         return value.split(self.token)       def get_db_prep_value(self, value):         if not value: return         assert(isinstance(value, list) or isinstance(value, tuple))         return self.token.join([unicode(s) for s in value])       def value_to_string(self, obj):         value = self._get_val_from_obj(obj)         return self.get_db_prep_value(value)