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@blarghmatey
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Problem

The Forums V2 API responses were missing the author attribute that is expected by the frontend, causing issues when displaying comment/thread author information.

Diagnosis

After investigating API responses and comparing with the expected format:

  • The ContentSerializer already has a username field mapped to author_username
  • Frontend code expects an author field in API responses
  • The field was missing from the DRF serializer output
  • Both author and username should reference the same source data (author_username)

Solution

Added the author field to the ContentSerializer class, mapped to the same author_username source as the existing username field.

Changes

  • Added author = serializers.CharField(source="author_username", allow_null=True) to ContentSerializer in forum/serializers/contents.py

Testing

This change:

  • ✅ Maintains backward compatibility (existing username field unchanged)
  • ✅ Adds the expected author field to API responses
  • ✅ Uses the same source data (author_username) for consistency
  • ✅ Minimal change - single line addition

Related Issues

This fixes compatibility issues with Forums V2 API responses where the frontend expects an author field in addition to the username field.

@openedx-webhooks
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Thanks for the pull request, @blarghmatey!

This repository is currently maintained by @openedx/wg-maintainers-forums.

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@openedx-webhooks openedx-webhooks added the open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U label Nov 5, 2025
@github-project-automation github-project-automation bot moved this to Needs Triage in Contributions Nov 5, 2025
@mphilbrick211 mphilbrick211 moved this from Needs Triage to Waiting on Author in Contributions Nov 6, 2025
@taimoor-ahmed-1
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@blarghmatey can you kindly fix the tests?

@blarghmatey blarghmatey force-pushed the fix-forums-v2-author-field branch from e2a64d8 to 1095c3c Compare November 7, 2025 14:38
…ility

The Forums V2 API responses were missing the 'author' attribute that is expected by
the frontend, causing issues when displaying comment/thread author information.

Analysis showed that:
- The ContentSerializer already has 'username' field mapped to 'author_username'
- Frontend expects an 'author' field in addition to 'username'
- Both should reference the same source data (author_username)

This change adds the 'author' field to the DRF serializer, mapped to the same
'author_username' source as 'username', maintaining backward compatibility while
fixing the missing field issue.

Fixes compatibility issues with Forums V2 API responses.
@blarghmatey blarghmatey force-pushed the fix-forums-v2-author-field branch from 1095c3c to e3c8592 Compare November 7, 2025 15:24
@taimoor-ahmed-1 taimoor-ahmed-1 merged commit 810c2b0 into openedx:master Nov 9, 2025
14 checks passed
@github-project-automation github-project-automation bot moved this from Waiting on Author to Done in Contributions Nov 9, 2025
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3 participants