Bound and unbound forms¶

A Form instance is either bound to a set of data, or unbound.

• If it’s bound to a set of data, it’s capable of validating that data and rendering the form as HTML with the data displayed in the HTML.

• If it’s unbound, it cannot do validation (because there’s no data to validate!), but it can still render the blank form as HTML.

class Form[source]¶

To create an unbound Form instance, instantiate the class:

>>> f = ContactForm()

To bind data to a form, pass the data as a dictionary as the first parameter to your Form class constructor:

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "hello",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "foo@example.com",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data)

In this dictionary, the keys are the field names, which correspond to the attributes in your Form class. The values are the data you’re trying to validate. These will usually be strings, but there’s no requirement that they be strings; the type of data you pass depends on the Field, as we’ll see in a moment.

Form.is_bound¶

If you need to distinguish between bound and unbound form instances at runtime, check the value of the form’s is_bound attribute:

>>> f = ContactForm()
>>> f.is_bound
False
>>> f = ContactForm({"subject": "hello"})
>>> f.is_bound
True

Note that passing an empty dictionary creates a bound form with empty data:

>>> f = ContactForm({})
>>> f.is_bound
True

If you have a bound Form instance and want to change the data somehow, or if you want to bind an unbound Form instance to some data, create another Form instance. There is no way to change data in a Form instance. Once a Form instance has been created, you should consider its data immutable, whether it has data or not.

Using forms to validate data¶

Form.clean()¶

Implement a clean() method on your Form when you must add custom validation for fields that are interdependent. See Cleaning and validating fields that depend on each other for example usage.

Form.is_valid()¶

The primary task of a Form object is to validate data. With a bound Form instance, call the is_valid() method to run validation and return a boolean designating whether the data was valid:

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "hello",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "foo@example.com",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data)
>>> f.is_valid()
True

Let’s try with some invalid data. In this case, subject is blank (an error, because all fields are required by default) and sender is not a valid email address:

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "invalid email address",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data)
>>> f.is_valid()
False

Form.errors¶

Access the errors attribute to get a dictionary of error messages:

>>> f.errors
{'sender': ['Enter a valid email address.'], 'subject': ['This field is required.']}

In this dictionary, the keys are the field names, and the values are lists of strings representing the error messages. The error messages are stored in lists because a field can have multiple error messages.

You can access errors without having to call is_valid() first. The form’s data will be validated the first time either you call is_valid() or access errors.

The validation routines will only get called once, regardless of how many times you access errors or call is_valid(). This means that if validation has side effects, those side effects will only be triggered once.

Form.errors.as_data()¶

Returns a dict that maps fields to their original ValidationError instances.

>>> f.errors.as_data()
{'sender': [ValidationError(['Enter a valid email address.'])],
'subject': [ValidationError(['This field is required.'])]}

Use this method anytime you need to identify an error by its code. This enables things like rewriting the error’s message or writing custom logic in a view when a given error is present. It can also be used to serialize the errors in a custom format (e.g. XML); for instance, as_json() relies on as_data().

The need for the as_data() method is due to backwards compatibility. Previously ValidationError instances were lost as soon as their rendered error messages were added to the Form.errors dictionary. Ideally Form.errors would have stored ValidationError instances and methods with an as_ prefix could render them, but it had to be done the other way around in order not to break code that expects rendered error messages in Form.errors.

Form.errors.as_json(escape_html=False)¶

Returns the errors serialized as JSON.

>>> f.errors.as_json()
{"sender": [{"message": "Enter a valid email address.", "code": "invalid"}],
"subject": [{"message": "This field is required.", "code": "required"}]}

By default, as_json() does not escape its output. If you are using it for something like AJAX requests to a form view where the client interprets the response and inserts errors into the page, you’ll want to be sure to escape the results on the client-side to avoid the possibility of a cross-site scripting attack. You can do this in JavaScript with element.textContent = errorText or with jQuery’s $(el).text(errorText) (rather than its .html() function).

If for some reason you don’t want to use client-side escaping, you can also set escape_html=True and error messages will be escaped so you can use them directly in HTML.

Form.errors.get_json_data(escape_html=False)¶

Returns the errors as a dictionary suitable for serializing to JSON. Form.errors.as_json() returns serialized JSON, while this returns the error data before it’s serialized.

The escape_html parameter behaves as described in Form.errors.as_json().

Form.add_error(field, error)¶

This method allows adding errors to specific fields from within the Form.clean() method, or from outside the form altogether; for instance from a view.

The field argument is the name of the field to which the errors should be added. If its value is None the error will be treated as a non-field error as returned by Form.non_field_errors().

The error argument can be a string, or preferably an instance of ValidationError. See Raising ValidationError for best practices when defining form errors.

Note that Form.add_error() automatically removes the relevant field from cleaned_data.

Form.has_error(field, code=None)¶

This method returns a boolean designating whether a field has an error with a specific error code. If code is None, it will return True if the field contains any errors at all.

To check for non-field errors use NON_FIELD_ERRORS as the field parameter.

Form.non_field_errors()¶

This method returns the list of errors from Form.errors that aren’t associated with a particular field. This includes ValidationErrors that are raised in Form.clean() and errors added using Form.add_error(None, "...").

>>> f = ContactForm()
>>> f.is_valid()
False
>>> f.errors
{}

Initial form values¶

Form.initial¶

Use initial to declare the initial value of form fields at runtime. For example, you might want to fill in a username field with the username of the current session.

To accomplish this, use the initial argument to a Form. This argument, if given, should be a dictionary mapping field names to initial values. Only include the fields for which you’re specifying an initial value; it’s not necessary to include every field in your form. For example:

>>> f = ContactForm(initial={"subject": "Hi there!"})

These values are only displayed for unbound forms, and they’re not used as fallback values if a particular value isn’t provided.

If a Field defines initial and you include initial when instantiating the Form, then the latter initial will have precedence. In this example, initial is provided both at the field level and at the form instance level, and the latter gets precedence:

>>> from django import forms
>>> class CommentForm(forms.Form):
...     name = forms.CharField(initial="class")
...     url = forms.URLField()
...     comment = forms.CharField()
...
>>> f = CommentForm(initial={"name": "instance"}, auto_id=False)
>>> print(f)
<div>Name:<input type="text" name="name" value="instance" required></div>
<div>Url:<input type="url" name="url" required></div>
<div>Comment:<input type="text" name="comment" required></div>

Form.get_initial_for_field(field, field_name)¶

Returns the initial data for a form field. It retrieves the data from Form.initial if present, otherwise trying Field.initial. Callable values are evaluated.

It is recommended to use BoundField.initial over get_initial_for_field() because BoundField.initial has a simpler interface. Also, unlike get_initial_for_field(), BoundField.initial caches its values. This is useful especially when dealing with callables whose return values can change (e.g. datetime.now or uuid.uuid4):

>>> import uuid
>>> class UUIDCommentForm(CommentForm):
...     identifier = forms.UUIDField(initial=uuid.uuid4)
...
>>> f = UUIDCommentForm()
>>> f.get_initial_for_field(f.fields["identifier"], "identifier")
UUID('972ca9e4-7bfe-4f5b-af7d-07b3aa306334')
>>> f.get_initial_for_field(f.fields["identifier"], "identifier")
UUID('1b411fab-844e-4dec-bd4f-e9b0495f04d0')
>>> # Using BoundField.initial, for comparison
>>> f["identifier"].initial
UUID('28a09c59-5f00-4ed9-9179-a3b074fa9c30')
>>> f["identifier"].initial
UUID('28a09c59-5f00-4ed9-9179-a3b074fa9c30')

Checking which form data has changed¶

Form.has_changed()¶

Use the has_changed() method on your Form when you need to check if the form data has been changed from the initial data.

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "hello",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "foo@example.com",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data, initial=data)
>>> f.has_changed()
False

When the form is submitted, we reconstruct it and provide the original data so that the comparison can be done:

>>> f = ContactForm(request.POST, initial=data)
>>> f.has_changed()

has_changed() will be True if the data from request.POST differs from what was provided in initial or False otherwise. The result is computed by calling Field.has_changed() for each field in the form.

Form.changed_data¶

The changed_data attribute returns a list of the names of the fields whose values in the form’s bound data (usually request.POST) differ from what was provided in initial. It returns an empty list if no data differs.

>>> f = ContactForm(request.POST, initial=data)
>>> if f.has_changed():
...     print("The following fields changed: %s" % ", ".join(f.changed_data))
...
>>> f.changed_data
['subject', 'message']

Accessing the fields from the form¶

Form.fields¶

You can access the fields of Form instance from its fields attribute:

>>> for row in f.fields.values():
...     print(row)
...
<django.forms.fields.CharField object at 0x7ffaac632510>
<django.forms.fields.URLField object at 0x7ffaac632f90>
<django.forms.fields.CharField object at 0x7ffaac3aa050>
>>> f.fields["name"]
<django.forms.fields.CharField object at 0x7ffaac6324d0>

You can alter the field and BoundField of Form instance to change the way it is presented in the form:

>>> f.as_div().split("</div>")[0]
'<div><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_subject">'
>>> f["subject"].label = "Topic"
>>> f.as_div().split("</div>")[0]
'<div><label for="id_subject">Topic:</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_subject">'

Beware not to alter the base_fields attribute because this modification will influence all subsequent ContactForm instances within the same Python process:

>>> f.base_fields["subject"].label_suffix = "?"
>>> another_f = ContactForm(auto_id=False)
>>> another_f.as_div().split("</div>")[0]
'<div><label for="id_subject">Subject?</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_subject">'

Accessing “clean” data¶

Form.cleaned_data¶

Each field in a Form class is responsible not only for validating data, but also for “cleaning” it – normalizing it to a consistent format. This is a nice feature, because it allows data for a particular field to be input in a variety of ways, always resulting in consistent output.

For example, DateField normalizes input into a Python datetime.date object. Regardless of whether you pass it a string in the format '1994-07-15', a datetime.date object, or a number of other formats, DateField will always normalize it to a datetime.date object as long as it’s valid.

Once you’ve created a Form instance with a set of data and validated it, you can access the clean data via its cleaned_data attribute:

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "hello",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "foo@example.com",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data)
>>> f.is_valid()
True
>>> f.cleaned_data
{'cc_myself': True, 'message': 'Hi there', 'sender': 'foo@example.com', 'subject': 'hello'}

Note that any text-based field – such as CharField or EmailField – always cleans the input into a string. We’ll cover the encoding implications later in this document.

If your data does not validate, the cleaned_data dictionary contains only the valid fields:

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "invalid email address",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data)
>>> f.is_valid()
False
>>> f.cleaned_data
{'cc_myself': True, 'message': 'Hi there'}

cleaned_data will always only contain a key for fields defined in the Form, even if you pass extra data when you define the Form. In this example, we pass a bunch of extra fields to the ContactForm constructor, but cleaned_data contains only the form’s fields:

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "hello",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "foo@example.com",
...     "cc_myself": True,
...     "extra_field_1": "foo",
...     "extra_field_2": "bar",
...     "extra_field_3": "baz",
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data)
>>> f.is_valid()
True
>>> f.cleaned_data  # Doesn't contain extra_field_1, etc.
{'cc_myself': True, 'message': 'Hi there', 'sender': 'foo@example.com', 'subject': 'hello'}

When the Form is valid, cleaned_data will include a key and value for all its fields, even if the data didn’t include a value for some optional fields. In this example, the data dictionary doesn’t include a value for the nick_name field, but cleaned_data includes it, with an empty value:

>>> from django import forms
>>> class OptionalPersonForm(forms.Form):
...     first_name = forms.CharField()
...     last_name = forms.CharField()
...     nick_name = forms.CharField(required=False)
...
>>> data = {"first_name": "John", "last_name": "Lennon"}
>>> f = OptionalPersonForm(data)
>>> f.is_valid()
True
>>> f.cleaned_data
{'nick_name': '', 'first_name': 'John', 'last_name': 'Lennon'}

In this above example, the cleaned_data value for nick_name is set to an empty string, because nick_name is CharField, and CharFields treat empty values as an empty string. Each field type knows what its “blank” value is – e.g., for DateField, it’s None instead of the empty string. For full details on each field’s behavior in this case, see the “Empty value” note for each field in the Built-in Field classes section below.

You can write code to perform validation for particular form fields (based on their name) or for the form as a whole (considering combinations of various fields). More information about this is in Form and field validation.

Outputting forms as HTML¶

The second task of a Form object is to render itself as HTML. To do so, print it:

>>> f = ContactForm()
>>> print(f)
<div><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_subject"></div>
<div><label for="id_message">Message:</label><input type="text" name="message" required id="id_message"></div>
<div><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label><input type="email" name="sender" required id="id_sender"></div>
<div><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself"></div>

If the form is bound to data, the HTML output will include that data appropriately. For example, if a field is represented by an <input type="text">, the data will be in the value attribute. If a field is represented by an <input type="checkbox">, then that HTML will include checked if appropriate:

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "hello",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "foo@example.com",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data)
>>> print(f)
<div><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label><input type="text" name="subject" value="hello" maxlength="100" required id="id_subject"></div>
<div><label for="id_message">Message:</label><input type="text" name="message" value="Hi there" required id="id_message"></div>
<div><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label><input type="email" name="sender" value="foo@example.com" required id="id_sender"></div>
<div><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself" checked></div>

This default output wraps each field with a <div>. Notice the following:

• For flexibility, the output does not include the <form> and </form> tags or an <input type="submit"> tag. It’s your job to do that.

• Each field type has a default HTML representation. CharField is represented by an <input type="text"> and EmailField by an <input type="email">. BooleanField(null=False) is represented by an <input type="checkbox">. Note these are merely sensible defaults; you can specify which HTML to use for a given field by using widgets, which we’ll explain shortly.

• The HTML name for each tag is taken directly from its attribute name in the ContactForm class.

• The text label for each field – e.g. 'Subject:', 'Message:' and 'Cc myself:' is generated from the field name by converting all underscores to spaces and upper-casing the first letter. Again, note these are merely sensible defaults; you can also specify labels manually.

• Each text label is surrounded in an HTML <label> tag, which points to the appropriate form field via its id. Its id, in turn, is generated by prepending 'id_' to the field name. The id attributes and <label> tags are included in the output by default, to follow best practices, but you can change that behavior.

• The output uses HTML5 syntax, targeting <!DOCTYPE html>. For example, it uses boolean attributes such as checked rather than the XHTML style of checked='checked'.

Although <div> output is the default output style when you print a form you can customize the output by using your own form template which can be set site-wide, per-form, or per-instance. See Reusable form templates.

>>> f = ContactForm()
>>> f.as_div()

<div>
<label for="id_subject">Subject:</label>
<input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_subject">
</div>
<div>
<label for="id_message">Message:</label>
<input type="text" name="message" required id="id_message">
</div>
<div>
<label for="id_sender">Sender:</label>
<input type="email" name="sender" required id="id_sender">
</div>
<div>
<label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label>
<input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself">
</div>

>>> f = ContactForm()
>>> f.as_p()
'<p><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label> <input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></p>\n<p><label for="id_message">Message:</label> <input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required></p>\n<p><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label> <input type="text" name="sender" id="id_sender" required></p>\n<p><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label> <input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself"></p>'
>>> print(f.as_p())
<p><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label> <input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></p>
<p><label for="id_message">Message:</label> <input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required></p>
<p><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label> <input type="email" name="sender" id="id_sender" required></p>
<p><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label> <input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself"></p>

>>> f = ContactForm()
>>> f.as_ul()
'<li><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label> <input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></li>\n<li><label for="id_message">Message:</label> <input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required></li>\n<li><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label> <input type="email" name="sender" id="id_sender" required></li>\n<li><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label> <input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself"></li>'
>>> print(f.as_ul())
<li><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label> <input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></li>
<li><label for="id_message">Message:</label> <input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required></li>
<li><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label> <input type="email" name="sender" id="id_sender" required></li>
<li><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label> <input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself"></li>

>>> f = ContactForm()
>>> f.as_table()
'<tr><th><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label></th><td><input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></td></tr>\n<tr><th><label for="id_message">Message:</label></th><td><input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required></td></tr>\n<tr><th><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label></th><td><input type="email" name="sender" id="id_sender" required></td></tr>\n<tr><th><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label></th><td><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself"></td></tr>'
>>> print(f.as_table())
<tr><th><label for="id_subject">Subject:</label></th><td><input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></td></tr>
<tr><th><label for="id_message">Message:</label></th><td><input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required></td></tr>
<tr><th><label for="id_sender">Sender:</label></th><td><input type="email" name="sender" id="id_sender" required></td></tr>
<tr><th><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label></th><td><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself"></td></tr>

from django import forms


class ContactForm(forms.Form):
    error_css_class = "error"
    required_css_class = "required"

    # ... and the rest of your fields here

>>> f = ContactForm(data)
>>> print(f)
<div class="required"><label for="id_subject" class="required">Subject:</label> ...
<div class="required"><label for="id_message" class="required">Message:</label> ...
<div class="required"><label for="id_sender" class="required">Sender:</label> ...
<div><label for="id_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label> ...
>>> f["subject"].label_tag()
<label class="required" for="id_subject">Subject:</label>
>>> f["subject"].legend_tag()
<legend class="required" for="id_subject">Subject:</legend>
>>> f["subject"].label_tag(attrs={"class": "foo"})
<label for="id_subject" class="foo required">Subject:</label>
>>> f["subject"].legend_tag(attrs={"class": "foo"})
<legend for="id_subject" class="foo required">Subject:</legend>

>>> f = ContactForm(auto_id=False)
>>> print(f)
<div>Subject:<input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></div>
<div>Message:<textarea name="message" cols="40" rows="10" required></textarea></div>
<div>Sender:<input type="email" name="sender" required></div>
<div>Cc myself:<input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself"></div>

>>> f = ContactForm(auto_id=True)
>>> print(f)
<div><label for="subject">Subject:</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="subject"></div>
<div><label for="message">Message:</label><textarea name="message" cols="40" rows="10" required id="message"></textarea></div>
<div><label for="sender">Sender:</label><input type="email" name="sender" required id="sender"></div>
<div><label for="cc_myself">Cc myself:</label><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="cc_myself"></div>

>>> f = ContactForm(auto_id="id_for_%s")
>>> print(f)
<div><label for="id_for_subject">Subject:</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_for_subject"></div>
<div><label for="id_for_message">Message:</label><textarea name="message" cols="40" rows="10" required id="id_for_message"></textarea></div>
<div><label for="id_for_sender">Sender:</label><input type="email" name="sender" required id="id_for_sender"></div>
<div><label for="id_for_cc_myself">Cc myself:</label><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_for_cc_myself"></div>

>>> f = ContactForm(auto_id="id_for_%s", label_suffix="")
>>> print(f)
<div><label for="id_for_subject">Subject</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_for_subject"></div>
<div><label for="id_for_message">Message</label><textarea name="message" cols="40" rows="10" required id="id_for_message"></textarea></div>
<div><label for="id_for_sender">Sender</label><input type="email" name="sender" required id="id_for_sender"></div>
<div><label for="id_for_cc_myself">Cc myself</label><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_for_cc_myself"></div>
>>> f = ContactForm(auto_id="id_for_%s", label_suffix=" ->")
>>> print(f)
<div><label for="id_for_subject">Subject -&gt;</label><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required id="id_for_subject"></div>
<div><label for="id_for_message">Message -&gt;</label><textarea name="message" cols="40" rows="10" required id="id_for_message"></textarea></div>
<div><label for="id_for_sender">Sender -&gt;</label><input type="email" name="sender" required id="id_for_sender"></div>
<div><label for="id_for_cc_myself">Cc myself -&gt;</label><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_for_cc_myself"></div>

from django import forms


class MyForm(forms.Form):
    default_renderer = MyRenderer()

form = MyForm(renderer=MyRenderer())

>>> data = {
...     "subject": "",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "invalid email address",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> f = ContactForm(data, auto_id=False)
>>> print(f)
<div>Subject:
  <ul class="errorlist"><li>This field is required.</li></ul>
  <input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required aria-invalid="true">
</div>
<div>Message:
  <textarea name="message" cols="40" rows="10" required>Hi there</textarea>
</div>
<div>Sender:
  <ul class="errorlist"><li>Enter a valid email address.</li></ul>
  <input type="email" name="sender" value="invalid email address" required aria-invalid="true">
</div>
<div>Cc myself:
  <input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" checked>
</div>

More granular output¶

The as_p(), as_ul(), and as_table() methods are shortcuts – they’re not the only way a form object can be displayed.

class BoundField[source]¶

Used to display HTML or access attributes for a single field of a Form instance.

The __str__() method of this object displays the HTML for this field.

To retrieve a single BoundField, use dictionary lookup syntax on your form using the field’s name as the key:

>>> form = ContactForm()
>>> print(form["subject"])
<input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required>

To retrieve all BoundField objects, iterate the form:

>>> form = ContactForm()
>>> for boundfield in form:
...     print(boundfield)
...
<input id="id_subject" type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required>
<input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required>
<input type="email" name="sender" id="id_sender" required>
<input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" id="id_cc_myself">

The field-specific output honors the form object’s auto_id setting:

>>> f = ContactForm(auto_id=False)
>>> print(f["message"])
<input type="text" name="message" required>
>>> f = ContactForm(auto_id="id_%s")
>>> print(f["message"])
<input type="text" name="message" id="id_message" required>

Customizing BoundField¶

If you need to access some additional information about a form field in a template and using a subclass of Field isn’t sufficient, consider also customizing BoundField.

A custom form field can override get_bound_field():

Field.get_bound_field(form, field_name)[source]¶

Takes an instance of Form and the name of the field. The return value will be used when accessing the field in a template. Most likely it will be an instance of a subclass of BoundField.

If you have a GPSCoordinatesField, for example, and want to be able to access additional information about the coordinates in a template, this could be implemented as follows:

class GPSCoordinatesBoundField(BoundField):
    @property
    def country(self):
        """
        Return the country the coordinates lie in or None if it can't be
        determined.
        """
        value = self.value()
        if value:
            return get_country_from_coordinates(value)
        else:
            return None


class GPSCoordinatesField(Field):
    def get_bound_field(self, form, field_name):
        return GPSCoordinatesBoundField(form, self, field_name)

Now you can access the country in a template with {{ form.coordinates.country }}.

Binding uploaded files to a form¶

Dealing with forms that have FileField and ImageField fields is a little more complicated than a normal form.

Firstly, in order to upload files, you’ll need to make sure that your <form> element correctly defines the enctype as "multipart/form-data":

<form enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" action="/foo/">

Secondly, when you use the form, you need to bind the file data. File data is handled separately to normal form data, so when your form contains a FileField and ImageField, you will need to specify a second argument when you bind your form. So if we extend our ContactForm to include an ImageField called mugshot, we need to bind the file data containing the mugshot image:

# Bound form with an image field
>>> from django.core.files.uploadedfile import SimpleUploadedFile
>>> data = {
...     "subject": "hello",
...     "message": "Hi there",
...     "sender": "foo@example.com",
...     "cc_myself": True,
... }
>>> file_data = {"mugshot": SimpleUploadedFile("face.jpg", b"file data")}
>>> f = ContactFormWithMugshot(data, file_data)

In practice, you will usually specify request.FILES as the source of file data (just like you use request.POST as the source of form data):

# Bound form with an image field, data from the request
>>> f = ContactFormWithMugshot(request.POST, request.FILES)

Constructing an unbound form is the same as always – omit both form data and file data:

# Unbound form with an image field
>>> f = ContactFormWithMugshot()

>>> f = ContactFormWithMugshot()
>>> f.is_multipart()
True

{% if form.is_multipart %}
    <form enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" action="/foo/">
{% else %}
    <form method="post" action="/foo/">
{% endif %}
{{ form }}
</form>

Subclassing forms¶

If you have multiple Form classes that share fields, you can use subclassing to remove redundancy.

When you subclass a custom Form class, the resulting subclass will include all fields of the parent class(es), followed by the fields you define in the subclass.

In this example, ContactFormWithPriority contains all the fields from ContactForm, plus an additional field, priority. The ContactForm fields are ordered first:

>>> class ContactFormWithPriority(ContactForm):
...     priority = forms.CharField()
...
>>> f = ContactFormWithPriority(auto_id=False)
>>> print(f)
<div>Subject:<input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required></div>
<div>Message:<textarea name="message" cols="40" rows="10" required></textarea></div>
<div>Sender:<input type="email" name="sender" required></div>
<div>Cc myself:<input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself"></div>
<div>Priority:<input type="text" name="priority" required></div>

It’s possible to subclass multiple forms, treating forms as mixins. In this example, BeatleForm subclasses both PersonForm and InstrumentForm (in that order), and its field list includes the fields from the parent classes:

>>> from django import forms
>>> class PersonForm(forms.Form):
...     first_name = forms.CharField()
...     last_name = forms.CharField()
...
>>> class InstrumentForm(forms.Form):
...     instrument = forms.CharField()
...
>>> class BeatleForm(InstrumentForm, PersonForm):
...     haircut_type = forms.CharField()
...
>>> b = BeatleForm(auto_id=False)
>>> print(b)
<div>First name:<input type="text" name="first_name" required></div>
<div>Last name:<input type="text" name="last_name" required></div>
<div>Instrument:<input type="text" name="instrument" required></div>
<div>Haircut type:<input type="text" name="haircut_type" required></div>

It’s possible to declaratively remove a Field inherited from a parent class by setting the name of the field to None on the subclass. For example:

>>> from django import forms

>>> class ParentForm(forms.Form):
...     name = forms.CharField()
...     age = forms.IntegerField()
...

>>> class ChildForm(ParentForm):
...     name = None
...

>>> list(ChildForm().fields)
['age']

Prefixes for forms¶

Form.prefix¶

You can put several Django forms inside one <form> tag. To give each Form its own namespace, use the prefix keyword argument:

>>> mother = PersonForm(prefix="mother")
>>> father = PersonForm(prefix="father")
>>> print(mother)
<div><label for="id_mother-first_name">First name:</label><input type="text" name="mother-first_name" required id="id_mother-first_name"></div>
<div><label for="id_mother-last_name">Last name:</label><input type="text" name="mother-last_name" required id="id_mother-last_name"></div>
>>> print(father)
<div><label for="id_father-first_name">First name:</label><input type="text" name="father-first_name" required id="id_father-first_name"></div>
<div><label for="id_father-last_name">Last name:</label><input type="text" name="father-last_name" required id="id_father-last_name"></div>

The prefix can also be specified on the form class:

>>> class PersonForm(forms.Form):
...     ...
...     prefix = "person"
...