Django REST Framework: when to create a hyperlinked resource and when nested resource? How to POST a nested resource?

Question

I\'m building a REST web API using the Django REST Framework. Things are going great, but I have, however stumbled upon a problem with nested resources. At first, all relationsh

Answer 1

If i understood your question correctly, You want to have expanded author while you are retrieving the data and just want to send ID or URL in case of update and create.

1# It is not about any guideline and it totally depends on your requirement of how your api is going to be used.

2# So you need to extend your UserSerializer and override to_internal_value. Sample code might look like

class MyCustomSerializer(UserSerializer):
    def to_internal_value(self, data):
        # data must be valid user-detail url
        return serializers.HyperLinkedRelatedField(queryset=User.objects.all(), view_name='user-detail').to_internal_value(data)

Notice that you must have a Endpoint for user-detail in able to work with HyperLinkedRelatedField.

So If you want to be able to send ID then sample code might look like

class MyCustomSerializer(UserSerializer):
    # data must be valid user id
    def to_internal_value(self, data):
        return serializers.PrimaryKeyRelatedField(queryset=User.objects.all()).to_internal_value(data)

However i would like to keep consistency in sending ForeignKey field in POST/PUT/PATCH. (Always Either URL or ID).

then use it in your code like

class PostSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    author = MyCustomSerializer()

    class Meta:
        model = Post

Please see the documentation on Writable nested serializers to POST on a Nested resource.