django rest framework abstract class serializer

Question

I have some models like these:

class TypeBase(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=20)
    class Meta:
        abstract=True

class PersonType(T         


        

Answer 1

You can't use a ModelSerializer with an abstract base model. From restframework.serializers:

if model_meta.is_abstract_model(self.Meta.model):
        raise ValueError(
            'Cannot use ModelSerializer with Abstract Models.'
        )

I wrote a serializer_factory function for a similar problem:

from collections import OrderedDict
from restframework.serializers import ModelSerializer
def serializer_factory(mdl, fields=None, **kwargss):
""" Generalized serializer factory to increase DRYness of code.

:param mdl: The model class that should be instanciated
:param fields: the fields that should be exclusively present on the serializer
:param kwargss: optional additional field specifications
:return: An awesome serializer
"""

    def _get_declared_fields(attrs):
        fields = [(field_name, attrs.pop(field_name))
                  for field_name, obj in list(attrs.items())
                  if isinstance(obj, Field)]
        fields.sort(key=lambda x: x[1]._creation_counter)
        return OrderedDict(fields)

    # Create an object that will look like a base serializer
    class Base(object):
        pass

    Base._declared_fields = _get_declared_fields(kwargss)

    class MySerializer(Base, ModelSerializer):
        class Meta:
            model = mdl

        if fields:
            setattr(Meta, "fields", fields)

    return MySerializer

You can then use the factory to produce serializers as needed:

def typebase_serializer_factory(mdl):
    myserializer = serializer_factory(
        mdl,fields=["id","name"],
        #owner=HiddenField(default=CurrentUserDefault()),#Optional additional configuration for subclasses 
      )
    return myserializer

Now instanciate different subclass serializers:

persontypeserializer = typebase_serializer_factory(PersonType)
companytypeserializer = typebase_serializer_factory(CompanyType)