Set form field value before is_valid()

Question

I\'m having a bit of trouble grasping how to do this. I\'ve put my best effort into searching Google without any luck.

I\'ll start with a bit of code and explain wha

Answer 1

You can try this:

def action_create(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = ActionForm(request.POST)
        # check if new user should be created
        if 'owner_new' in request.POST:
            # check if user already exists
            user, _ = User.objects.get_or_create(username=request.POST.get('owner_new'))                

            updated_data = request.POST.copy()
            updated_data.update({'owner': user}) 
            form = MyForm(data=updated_data) 

        if form.is_valid(): # THIS FAILS BECAUSE form.owner ISN'T SET
            action = form.save(commit=False)
            action.created_by = request.user
            action.modified_by = request.user
            action.save()
            return redirect('action_register:index')
    else:
        form = ActionForm()
    return render(request, 'actions/create.html', {'form': form})

A cleaner way of doing this is:

add required=False to the owner field. Now,

if form.is_valid(): # THIS DOES NOT FAIL EVEN IF form.owner ISN'T SET
    action = form.save(commit=False)
    if 'owner_new' in request.POST:
        user, _ = User.objects.get_or_create(username=request.POST.get('owner_new'))                
        action.owner = user
    action.created_by = request.user
    action.modified_by = request.user
    action.save()
    return redirect('action_register:index')

Answer 2

I came into a similar situation and couldn't figure out how to do it the way I wanted. What I ended up with was putting a link to a UserForm which allows a user to create a new owner, and then redirect back to the ActionForm with the argument initial={owner: new_owner} included when instantiating the form.