In a Django form, how do I make a field readonly (or disabled) so that it cannot be edited?

Question

In a Django form, how do I make a field read-only (or disabled)?

When the form is being used to create a new entry, all fields should be enabled - but when the recor

Answer 1

Two more (similar) approaches with one generalized example:

1) first approach - removing field in save() method, e.g. (not tested ;) ):

def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
    for fname in self.readonly_fields:
        if fname in self.cleaned_data:
            del self.cleaned_data[fname]
    return super(, self).save(*args,**kwargs)

2) second approach - reset field to initial value in clean method:

def clean_(self):
    return self.initial[] # or getattr(self.instance, fieldname)

Based on second approach I generalized it like this:

from functools                 import partial

class (...):

    def __init__(self, ...):
        ...
        super(, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        ...
        for i, (fname, field) in enumerate(self.fields.iteritems()):
            if fname in self.readonly_fields:
                field.widget.attrs['readonly'] = "readonly"
                field.required = False
                # set clean method to reset value back
                clean_method_name = "clean_%s" % fname
                assert clean_method_name not in dir(self)
                setattr(self, clean_method_name, partial(self._clean_for_readonly_field, fname=fname))

    def _clean_for_readonly_field(self, fname):
        """ will reset value to initial - nothing will be changed 
            needs to be added dynamically - partial, see init_fields
        """
        return self.initial[fname] # or getattr(self.instance, fieldname)