Django: Get database object value in template using Ajax

Question

I want to fetch database object depending on user selection. I know one possible solution could be Ajax, but I don\'t know how to get about it. Here is the code:

Answer 1

You can use AJAX to call back to your Django code and return the name of your car:

template.html

$(document).ready(function () {
    $(document).on("click",'.car_add', function() {
        $car_id = $(this).attr('id')
        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            // This is the dictionary you are SENDING to your Django code. 
            // We are sending the 'action':add_car and the 'id: $car_id  
            // which is a variable that contains what car the user selected
            data: { action: "add_car", id: $car_id },
            success: function(data){
                // This will execute when where Django code returns a dictionary 
                // called 'data' back to us.
                $("#car").html("<strong>"+data.car+"</strong>");                
            }
        });
    });
});

views.py

def post(self,request, *args, **kwargs):
    if self.request.is_ajax():
        return self.ajax(request)

def ajax(self, request):
    response_dict= {
        'success': True,
    }
    action = request.POST.get('action','')

    if action == 'add_car':
        car_id = request.POST.get('id','')

    if hasattr(self, action):
        response_dict = getattr(self, action)(request)
        car = CAR.objects.get(ida_name='car_id')
        response_dict = {
            'car_name':car.name
        }

    return HttpResponse(simplejson.dumps(response_dict),
                        mimetype='application/json')

So in summary, here is what you're doing:

• Sending the 'id' of the car back to Django through Ajax.
• Django 'posts' to itself, realizes it is an AJAX call and calls the AJAX function
• Django see's that the action is 'add_car' and executes if statement
• Django queries the DB using the id you sent it, returning a car
• Django sends that data back to the page as a JSON object (a dictionary in this case)
• JQuery updates the page using the passed information.

If you want to see a clear cut example, please see this Link

Answer 2

I will assume that you are using AJAX requests.

You cannot directly return a query result or model instance as JSON. But you can serialize it. Here is one possibility:

from django.forms.models import model_to_dict
model_to_dict(intance, fields=[], exclude=[])

model_to_dict takes 3 parameters:

1. A specific model instance
2. fields to include
3. fields to exclude

Parameters 2 and 3 are optional. If you do not specify the fields, the method will serialize all of them. To do that for multiple instances (for example a query result), just do that in a loop for each instance.