DRF Serialization Magic

A collection of useful Decorators to DRY up your Django Rest Framework project when working with Serializers

Full documentation on read the docs

Overview

Serialization magic helps you boost your code and reduce duplication by using a higher-order function to reduce the number of lines of code and maintain consistency in your project.

Requirements

• Python (>= 3.7)
• Django (>= 3.0)
• Django REST Framework (> 3.11)

Installation

Using pip:

$ pip install drf-serialization-magic

Basic Usage

RenderSerialization

# model user
from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser

class User(AbstractUser):
    pass

# serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from drf_serialization_magic.models import User

class UserInformationSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    email = serializers.EmailField()
    username = serializers.CharField()

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ["id", "email", "username"]

• With @api_view decorator function

from rest_framework.decorators import api_view
from drf_serialization_magic import RenderSerialization
from drf_serialization_magic.serializers import UserInformationSerializer

@api_view(http_method_names=["GET"])
@RenderSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer)
def get_user_func_view(request):
    return request.user

API response

{
  "data": {
    "id": 1,
    "email": "userA@example.com",
    "username": "userA"
  }
}

• With GenericViewSet class

from drf_serialization_magic import RenderSerialization
from rest_framework.viewsets import GenericViewSet
from drf_serialization_magic.models import User
from drf_serialization_magic.serializers import UserInformationSerializer
# ...


class UserViewSet(GenericViewSet):
    def get_queryset(self):
        return User.objects.all()

    @RenderSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer)
    def list(self, request):
        return self.get_queryset()

API response

{
  "count": 2,
  "next": null,
  "previous": null,
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "email": "tom_hiddleston@gmail.com",
      "username": "tom_hiddleston"
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "email": "chris_hemsworth@gmail.com",
      "username": "chris_hemsworth"
    }
  ]
}

• With APIView class

from rest_framework.views import APIView
from drf_serialization_magic import RenderSerialization
from drf_serialization_magic.serializers import UserInformationSerializer


class UserAPIView(APIView):
    @RenderSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer)
    def get(self, request):
        return request.user

ValidateSerialization

• When validating body data(POST method)

from rest_framework.views import APIView
from drf_serialization_magic import RenderSerialization, ValidateSerialization
from drf_serialization_magic.serializers import UserInformationSerializer
from drf_serialization_magic.models import User


# combination usage
class UserAPIView(APIView):
    @RenderSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer)
    @ValidateSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer, location="body")
    def create(self, request, data):
        # data object is validated
        # the default will use key `data`, if you want to use another key,
        # pass argument to_key="something" in ValidateSerialization
        user = User.objects.create(**data)
        return user

API call

POST /api/users HTTP/1.1
Host: 127.0.0.1
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: */*


{
  "email": "chris.evans",
  "username": "chris_evans"
}

API response (422 HTTP status's code)

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "field": "email",
      "detail": ["Enter a valid email address."]
    }
  ],
  "message": "Validation Error!"
}

• When validating query params

from drf_serialization_magic import RenderSerialization, ValidateSerialization
from drf_serialization_magic.serializers import UserInformationSerializer
from drf_serialization_magic.models import User
from rest_framework.viewsets import GenericViewSet


class UserViewSet(GenericViewSet):

    # combination usage
    @RenderSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer)
    @ValidateSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer, location="query")
    def list(self, request, query):
        # data dict is validated
        # the default will use key `data`, if you want to use another key,
        # pass argument to_key="something" in ValidateSerialization
        user = User.objects.filter(username=query["username"])
        return user

API call

GET /api/users?email=chris_evans HTTP/1.1

API response(422 HTTP status's code)

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "field": "email",
      "detail": ["Enter a valid email address."]
    }
  ],
  "message": "Validation Error!"
}

Accept list query params lookup:

from drf_serialization_magic import RenderSerialization, ValidateSerialization
from drf_serialization_magic.serializers import UserListLookUpSerializer, UserInformationSerializer
    
from drf_serialization_magic.models import User
from rest_framework.viewsets import GenericViewSet


class UserViewSet(GenericViewSet):

    # combination usage
    @RenderSerialization(serializer_cls=UserInformationSerializer)
    @ValidateSerialization(serializer_cls=UserListLookUpSerializer, location="query")
    def list(self, request, query):
        # query dict is validated
        # the default will use key `query`, if you want to use another key,
        # pass argument to_key="something" in ValidateSerialization
        user = User.objects.filter(username__in=query["username"])
        return user

API request

GET /api/users?username=chris_evans&username=tom_hiddleston HTTP/1.1

API response

{
  "count": 2,
  "next": null,
  "previous": null,
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "email": "tom_hiddleston@gmail.com",
      "username": "tom_hiddleston"
    },
    {
      "id": 3,
      "email": "chris.evans@gmail.com",
      "username": "chris_evans"
    }
  ]
}

Testing

Tested with:

• Python (>= 3.9)
• Django (>= 3.1)
• Django REST Framework (> 3.11)

Support

If you need help, don't hesitate to start an issue. For commercial support, please contact via email: Thang Dang Minh