How to serialize hierarchical relationship in Django REST

Question

I have a Django model that is hierarchical using django-mptt, which looks like:

class UOMCategory(MPTTModel, BaseModel):
    \"\"\"
        This represents categ         


        

Answer 1

In DRF you can use a serializer as a field in another serializer. However, recursion is not possible.

Tom Christie posted a solution on another question (Django rest framework nested self-referential objects). His solution will also work with your problem.

In your UOMCategorySerializer.Meta class you specify the fields you want to use, also list the parent and/or children field(s) there. Then you use Tom Christies solution.

In your case this would give:

class UOMCategorySerializer(ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = UOMCategory
        fields = ('name', 'description', 'parent', 'children')

Tom Christies solution: By specifying what field to use for parent and/or children, you avoid using too much (and possibily endless) recursion:

UOMCategorySerializer.base_fields['parent'] = UOMCategorySerializer()
UOMCategorySerializer.base_fields['children'] = UOMCategorySerializer(many=True)

The above works for me in a similar situation.