Form fields¶
When you create a Form class, the most important part is defining the
fields of the form. Each field has custom validation logic, along with a few
other hooks.
Although the primary way you’ll use Field classes is in Form classes,
you can also instantiate them and use them directly to get a better idea of
how they work. Each Field instance has a clean() method, which takes
a single argument and either raises a django.forms.ValidationError
exception or returns the clean value:
>>> from django import forms
>>> f = forms.EmailField()
>>> f.clean('foo@example.com')
'foo@example.com'
>>> f.clean('invalid email address')
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
ValidationError: ['Enter a valid email address.']
Core field arguments¶
Each Field class constructor takes at least these arguments. Some
Field classes take additional, field-specific arguments, but the following
should always be accepted:
required¶
- 
Field.required¶
By default, each Field class assumes the value is required, so if you pass
an empty value – either None or the empty string ("") – then
clean() will raise a ValidationError exception:
>>> from django import forms
>>> f = forms.CharField()
>>> f.clean('foo')
'foo'
>>> f.clean('')
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
ValidationError: ['This field is required.']
>>> f.clean(None)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
ValidationError: ['This field is required.']
>>> f.clean(' ')
' '
>>> f.clean(0)
'0'
>>> f.clean(True)
'True'
>>> f.clean(False)
'False'
To specify that a field is not required, pass required=False to the
Field constructor:
>>> f = forms.CharField(required=False)
>>> f.clean('foo')
'foo'
>>> f.clean('')
''
>>> f.clean(None)
''
>>> f.clean(0)
'0'
>>> f.clean(True)
'True'
>>> f.clean(False)
'False'
If a Field has required=False and you pass clean() an empty value,
then clean() will return a normalized empty value rather than raising
ValidationError. For CharField, this will be a Unicode empty string.
For other Field classes, it might be None. (This varies from field to
field.)
Widgets of required form fields have the required HTML attribute. Set the
Form.use_required_attribute attribute to False to disable it. The
required attribute isn’t included on forms of formsets because the browser
validation may not be correct when adding and deleting formsets.
Support for the required HTML attribute was added.
label¶
- 
Field.label¶
The label argument lets you specify the “human-friendly” label for this
field. This is used when the Field is displayed in a Form.
As explained in “Outputting forms as HTML” above, the default label for a
Field is generated from the field name by converting all underscores to
spaces and upper-casing the first letter. Specify label if that default
behavior doesn’t result in an adequate label.
Here’s a full example Form that implements label for two of its fields.
We’ve specified auto_id=False to simplify the output:
>>> from django import forms
>>> class CommentForm(forms.Form):
...     name = forms.CharField(label='Your name')
...     url = forms.URLField(label='Your website', required=False)
...     comment = forms.CharField()
>>> f = CommentForm(auto_id=False)
>>> print(f)
<tr><th>Your name:</th><td><input type="text" name="name" required /></td></tr>
<tr><th>Your website:</th><td><input type="url" name="url" /></td></tr>
<tr><th>Comment:</th><td><input type="text" name="comment" required /></td></tr>
label_suffix¶
- 
Field.label_suffix¶
The label_suffix argument lets you override the form’s
label_suffix on a per-field basis:
>>> class ContactForm(forms.Form):
...     age = forms.IntegerField()
...     nationality = forms.CharField()
...     captcha_answer = forms.IntegerField(label='2 + 2', label_suffix=' =')
>>> f = ContactForm(label_suffix='?')
>>> print(f.as_p())
<p><label for="id_age">Age?</label> <input id="id_age" name="age" type="number" required /></p>
<p><label for="id_nationality">Nationality?</label> <input id="id_nationality" name="nationality" type="text" required /></p>
<p><label for="id_captcha_answer">2 + 2 =</label> <input id="id_captcha_answer" name="captcha_answer" type="number" required /></p>
initial¶
- 
Field.initial¶
The initial argument lets you specify the initial value to use when
rendering this Field in an unbound Form.
To specify dynamic initial data, see the Form.initial parameter.
The use-case for this is when you want to display an “empty” form in which a field is initialized to a particular value. For example:
>>> from django import forms
>>> class CommentForm(forms.Form):
...     name = forms.CharField(initial='Your name')
...     url = forms.URLField(initial='http://')
...     comment = forms.CharField()
>>> f = CommentForm(auto_id=False)
>>> print(f)
<tr><th>Name:</th><td><input type="text" name="name" value="Your name" required /></td></tr>
<tr><th>Url:</th><td><input type="url" name="url" value="http://" required /></td></tr>
<tr><th>Comment:</th><td><input type="text" name="comment" required /></td></tr>
You may be thinking, why not just pass a dictionary of the initial values as data when displaying the form? Well, if you do that, you’ll trigger validation, and the HTML output will include any validation errors:
>>> class CommentForm(forms.Form):
...     name = forms.CharField()
...     url = forms.URLField()
...     comment = forms.CharField()
>>> default_data = {'name': 'Your name', 'url': 'http://'}
>>> f = CommentForm(default_data, auto_id=False)
>>> print(f)
<tr><th>Name:</th><td><input type="text" name="name" value="Your name" required /></td></tr>
<tr><th>Url:</th><td><ul class="errorlist"><li>Enter a valid URL.</li></ul><input type="url" name="url" value="http://" required /></td></tr>
<tr><th>Comment:</th><td><ul class="errorlist"><li>This field is required.</li></ul><input type="text" name="comment" required /></td></tr>
This is why initial values are only displayed for unbound forms. For bound
forms, the HTML output will use the bound data.
Also note that initial values are not used as “fallback” data in
validation if a particular field’s value is not given. initial values are
only intended for initial form display:
>>> class CommentForm(forms.Form):
...     name = forms.CharField(initial='Your name')
...     url = forms.URLField(initial='http://')
...     comment = forms.CharField()
>>> data = {'name': '', 'url': '', 'comment': 'Foo'}
>>> f = CommentForm(data)
>>> f.is_valid()
False
# The form does *not* fall back to using the initial values.
>>> f.errors
{'url': ['This field is required.'], 'name': ['This field is required.']}
Instead of a constant, you can also pass any callable:
>>> import datetime
>>> class DateForm(forms.Form):
...     day = forms.DateField(initial=datetime.date.today)
>>> print(DateForm())
<tr><th>Day:</th><td><input type="text" name="day" value="12/23/2008" required /><td></tr>
The callable will be evaluated only when the unbound form is displayed, not when it is defined.
widget¶
- 
Field.widget¶
The widget argument lets you specify a Widget class to use when
rendering this Field. See Widgets for more information.
help_text¶
- 
Field.help_text¶
The help_text argument lets you specify descriptive text for this
Field. If you provide help_text, it will be displayed next to the
Field when the Field is rendered by one of the convenience Form
methods (e.g., as_ul()).
Like the model field’s help_text, this value
isn’t HTML-escaped in automatically-generated forms.
Here’s a full example Form that implements help_text for two of its
fields. We’ve specified auto_id=False to simplify the output:
>>> from django import forms
>>> class HelpTextContactForm(forms.Form):
...     subject = forms.CharField(max_length=100, help_text='100 characters max.')
...     message = forms.CharField()
...     sender = forms.EmailField(help_text='A valid email address, please.')
...     cc_myself = forms.BooleanField(required=False)
>>> f = HelpTextContactForm(auto_id=False)
>>> print(f.as_table())
<tr><th>Subject:</th><td><input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required /><br /><span class="helptext">100 characters max.</span></td></tr>
<tr><th>Message:</th><td><input type="text" name="message" required /></td></tr>
<tr><th>Sender:</th><td><input type="email" name="sender" required /><br />A valid email address, please.</td></tr>
<tr><th>Cc myself:</th><td><input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" /></td></tr>
>>> print(f.as_ul()))
<li>Subject: <input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required /> <span class="helptext">100 characters max.</span></li>
<li>Message: <input type="text" name="message" required /></li>
<li>Sender: <input type="email" name="sender" required /> A valid email address, please.</li>
<li>Cc myself: <input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" /></li>
>>> print(f.as_p())
<p>Subject: <input type="text" name="subject" maxlength="100" required /> <span class="helptext">100 characters max.</span></p>
<p>Message: <input type="text" name="message" required /></p>
<p>Sender: <input type="email" name="sender" required /> A valid email address, please.</p>
<p>Cc myself: <input type="checkbox" name="cc_myself" /></p>
error_messages¶
- 
Field.error_messages¶
The error_messages argument lets you override the default messages that the
field will raise. Pass in a dictionary with keys matching the error messages you
want to override. For example, here is the default error message:
>>> from django import forms
>>> generic = forms.CharField()
>>> generic.clean('')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
ValidationError: ['This field is required.']
And here is a custom error message:
>>> name = forms.CharField(error_messages={'required': 'Please enter your name'})
>>> name.clean('')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
ValidationError: ['Please enter your name']
In the built-in Field classes section below, each Field defines the
error message keys it uses.
validators¶
- 
Field.validators¶
The validators argument lets you provide a list of validation functions
for this field.
See the validators documentation for more information.
localize¶
- 
Field.localize¶
The localize argument enables the localization of form data input, as well
as the rendered output.
See the format localization documentation for more information.
disabled¶
- 
Field.disabled¶
The disabled boolean argument, when set to True, disables a form field
using the disabled HTML attribute so that it won’t be editable by users.
Even if a user tampers with the field’s value submitted to the server, it will
be ignored in favor of the value from the form’s initial data.
Checking if the field data has changed¶
has_changed()¶
The has_changed() method is used to determine if the field value has changed
from the initial value. Returns True or False.
See the Form.has_changed() documentation for more information.
Built-in Field classes¶
Naturally, the forms library comes with a set of Field classes that
represent common validation needs. This section documents each built-in field.
For each field, we describe the default widget used if you don’t specify
widget. We also specify the value returned when you provide an empty value
(see the section on required above to understand what that means).
BooleanField¶
- 
class BooleanField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: CheckboxInput
- Empty value: False
- Normalizes to: A Python TrueorFalsevalue.
- Validates that the value is True(e.g. the check box is checked) if the field hasrequired=True.
- Error message keys: required
 - Note - Since all - Fieldsubclasses have- required=Trueby default, the validation condition here is important. If you want to include a boolean in your form that can be either- Trueor- False(e.g. a checked or unchecked checkbox), you must remember to pass in- required=Falsewhen creating the- BooleanField.
- Default widget: 
CharField¶
- 
class CharField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object.
- Validates max_lengthormin_length, if they are provided. Otherwise, all inputs are valid.
- Error message keys: required,max_length,min_length
 - Has three optional arguments for validation: - 
max_length¶
 - 
min_length¶
 - If provided, these arguments ensure that the string is at most or at least the given length. - 
strip¶
- New in Django 1.9.If True(default), the value will be stripped of leading and trailing whitespace.
 
- Default widget: 
ChoiceField¶
- 
class ChoiceField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: Select
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object.
- Validates that the given value exists in the list of choices.
- Error message keys: required,invalid_choice
 - The - invalid_choiceerror message may contain- %(value)s, which will be replaced with the selected choice.- Takes one extra required argument: - 
choices¶
- Either an iterable (e.g., a list or tuple) of 2-tuples to use as choices for this field, or a callable that returns such an iterable. This argument accepts the same formats as the - choicesargument to a model field. See the model field reference documentation on choices for more details. If the argument is a callable, it is evaluated each time the field’s form is initialized.
 
- Default widget: 
TypedChoiceField¶
- 
class TypedChoiceField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Just like a - ChoiceField, except- TypedChoiceFieldtakes two extra arguments,- coerceand- empty_value.- Default widget: Select
- Empty value: Whatever you’ve given as empty_value.
- Normalizes to: A value of the type provided by the coerceargument.
- Validates that the given value exists in the list of choices and can be coerced.
- Error message keys: required,invalid_choice
 - Takes extra arguments: - 
coerce¶
- A function that takes one argument and returns a coerced value. Examples include the built-in - int,- float,- booland other types. Defaults to an identity function. Note that coercion happens after input validation, so it is possible to coerce to a value not present in- choices.
 - 
empty_value¶
- The value to use to represent “empty.” Defaults to the empty string; - Noneis another common choice here. Note that this value will not be coerced by the function given in the- coerceargument, so choose it accordingly.
 
- Default widget: 
DateField¶
- 
class DateField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: DateInput
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python datetime.dateobject.
- Validates that the given value is either a datetime.date,datetime.datetimeor string formatted in a particular date format.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - Takes one optional argument: - 
input_formats¶
- A list of formats used to attempt to convert a string to a valid - datetime.dateobject.
 - If no - input_formatsargument is provided, the default input formats are:- ['%Y-%m-%d', # '2006-10-25' '%m/%d/%Y', # '10/25/2006' '%m/%d/%y'] # '10/25/06' - Additionally, if you specify - USE_L10N=Falsein your settings, the following will also be included in the default input formats:- ['%b %d %Y', # 'Oct 25 2006' '%b %d, %Y', # 'Oct 25, 2006' '%d %b %Y', # '25 Oct 2006' '%d %b, %Y', # '25 Oct, 2006' '%B %d %Y', # 'October 25 2006' '%B %d, %Y', # 'October 25, 2006' '%d %B %Y', # '25 October 2006' '%d %B, %Y'] # '25 October, 2006' - See also format localization. 
- Default widget: 
DateTimeField¶
- 
class DateTimeField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: DateTimeInput
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python datetime.datetimeobject.
- Validates that the given value is either a datetime.datetime,datetime.dateor string formatted in a particular datetime format.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - Takes one optional argument: - 
input_formats¶
- A list of formats used to attempt to convert a string to a valid - datetime.datetimeobject.
 - If no - input_formatsargument is provided, the default input formats are:- ['%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', # '2006-10-25 14:30:59' '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M', # '2006-10-25 14:30' '%Y-%m-%d', # '2006-10-25' '%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S', # '10/25/2006 14:30:59' '%m/%d/%Y %H:%M', # '10/25/2006 14:30' '%m/%d/%Y', # '10/25/2006' '%m/%d/%y %H:%M:%S', # '10/25/06 14:30:59' '%m/%d/%y %H:%M', # '10/25/06 14:30' '%m/%d/%y'] # '10/25/06' - See also format localization. 
- Default widget: 
DecimalField¶
- 
class DecimalField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: NumberInputwhenField.localizeisFalse, elseTextInput.
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python decimal.
- Validates that the given value is a decimal. Leading and trailing whitespace is ignored.
- Error message keys: required,invalid,max_value,min_value,max_digits,max_decimal_places,max_whole_digits
 - The - max_valueand- min_valueerror messages may contain- %(limit_value)s, which will be substituted by the appropriate limit. Similarly, the- max_digits,- max_decimal_placesand- max_whole_digitserror messages may contain- %(max)s.- Takes four optional arguments: - 
max_value¶
 - 
min_value¶
- These control the range of values permitted in the field, and should be given as - decimal.Decimalvalues.
 - 
max_digits¶
- The maximum number of digits (those before the decimal point plus those after the decimal point, with leading zeros stripped) permitted in the value. 
 - 
decimal_places¶
- The maximum number of decimal places permitted. 
 
- Default widget: 
DurationField¶
- 
class DurationField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python timedelta.
- Validates that the given value is a string which can be converted into a
timedelta.
- Error message keys: required,invalid.
 - Accepts any format understood by - parse_duration().
- Default widget: 
EmailField¶
- 
class EmailField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: EmailInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object.
- Validates that the given value is a valid email address, using a moderately complex regular expression.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - Has two optional arguments for validation, - max_lengthand- min_length. If provided, these arguments ensure that the string is at most or at least the given length.
- Default widget: 
FileField¶
- 
class FileField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: ClearableFileInput
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: An UploadedFileobject that wraps the file content and file name into a single object.
- Can validate that non-empty file data has been bound to the form.
- Error message keys: required,invalid,missing,empty,max_length
 - Has two optional arguments for validation, - max_lengthand- allow_empty_file. If provided, these ensure that the file name is at most the given length, and that validation will succeed even if the file content is empty.- To learn more about the - UploadedFileobject, see the file uploads documentation.- When you use a - FileFieldin a form, you must also remember to bind the file data to the form.- The - max_lengtherror refers to the length of the filename. In the error message for that key,- %(max)dwill be replaced with the maximum filename length and- %(length)dwill be replaced with the current filename length.
- Default widget: 
FilePathField¶
- 
class FilePathField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: Select
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A unicode object
- Validates that the selected choice exists in the list of choices.
- Error message keys: required,invalid_choice
 - The field allows choosing from files inside a certain directory. It takes five extra arguments; only - pathis required:- 
path¶
- The absolute path to the directory whose contents you want listed. This directory must exist. 
 - 
recursive¶
- If - False(the default) only the direct contents of- pathwill be offered as choices. If- True, the directory will be descended into recursively and all descendants will be listed as choices.
 - 
match¶
- A regular expression pattern; only files with names matching this expression will be allowed as choices. 
 - 
allow_files¶
- Optional. Either - Trueor- False. Default is- True. Specifies whether files in the specified location should be included. Either this or- allow_foldersmust be- True.
 - 
allow_folders¶
- Optional. Either - Trueor- False. Default is- False. Specifies whether folders in the specified location should be included. Either this or- allow_filesmust be- True.
 
- Default widget: 
FloatField¶
- 
class FloatField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: NumberInputwhenField.localizeisFalse, elseTextInput.
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python float.
- Validates that the given value is a float. Leading and trailing
whitespace is allowed, as in Python’s float()function.
- Error message keys: required,invalid,max_value,min_value
 - Takes two optional arguments for validation, - max_valueand- min_value. These control the range of values permitted in the field.
- Default widget: 
ImageField¶
- 
class ImageField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: ClearableFileInput
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: An UploadedFileobject that wraps the file content and file name into a single object.
- Validates that file data has been bound to the form, and that the file is of an image format understood by Pillow.
- Error message keys: required,invalid,missing,empty,invalid_image
 - Using an - ImageFieldrequires that Pillow is installed with support for the image formats you use. If you encounter a- corrupt imageerror when you upload an image, it usually means that Pillow doesn’t understand its format. To fix this, install the appropriate library and reinstall Pillow.- When you use an - ImageFieldon a form, you must also remember to bind the file data to the form.- After the field has been cleaned and validated, the - UploadedFileobject will have an additional- imageattribute containing the Pillow Image instance used to check if the file was a valid image. Also,- UploadedFile.content_typewill be updated with the image’s content type if Pillow can determine it, otherwise it will be set to- None.
- Default widget: 
IntegerField¶
- 
class IntegerField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: NumberInputwhenField.localizeisFalse, elseTextInput.
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python integer or long integer.
- Validates that the given value is an integer. Leading and trailing
whitespace is allowed, as in Python’s int()function.
- Error message keys: required,invalid,max_value,min_value
 - The - max_valueand- min_valueerror messages may contain- %(limit_value)s, which will be substituted by the appropriate limit.- Takes two optional arguments for validation: - 
max_value¶
 - 
min_value¶
 - These control the range of values permitted in the field. 
- Default widget: 
GenericIPAddressField¶
- 
class GenericIPAddressField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- A field containing either an IPv4 or an IPv6 address. - Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object. IPv6 addresses are normalized as described below.
- Validates that the given value is a valid IP address.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - The IPv6 address normalization follows RFC 4291#section-2.2 section 2.2, including using the IPv4 format suggested in paragraph 3 of that section, like - ::ffff:192.0.2.0. For example,- 2001:0::0:01would be normalized to- 2001::1, and- ::ffff:0a0a:0a0ato- ::ffff:10.10.10.10. All characters are converted to lowercase.- Takes two optional arguments: - 
protocol¶
- Limits valid inputs to the specified protocol. Accepted values are - both(default),- IPv4or- IPv6. Matching is case insensitive.
 - 
unpack_ipv4¶
- Unpacks IPv4 mapped addresses like - ::ffff:192.0.2.1. If this option is enabled that address would be unpacked to- 192.0.2.1. Default is disabled. Can only be used when- protocolis set to- 'both'.
 
- Default widget: 
MultipleChoiceField¶
- 
class MultipleChoiceField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: SelectMultiple
- Empty value: [](an empty list)
- Normalizes to: A list of Unicode objects.
- Validates that every value in the given list of values exists in the list of choices.
- Error message keys: required,invalid_choice,invalid_list
 - The - invalid_choiceerror message may contain- %(value)s, which will be replaced with the selected choice.- Takes one extra required argument, - choices, as for- ChoiceField.
- Default widget: 
TypedMultipleChoiceField¶
- 
class TypedMultipleChoiceField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Just like a - MultipleChoiceField, except- TypedMultipleChoiceFieldtakes two extra arguments,- coerceand- empty_value.- Default widget: SelectMultiple
- Empty value: Whatever you’ve given as empty_value
- Normalizes to: A list of values of the type provided by the coerceargument.
- Validates that the given values exists in the list of choices and can be coerced.
- Error message keys: required,invalid_choice
 - The - invalid_choiceerror message may contain- %(value)s, which will be replaced with the selected choice.- Takes two extra arguments, - coerceand- empty_value, as for- TypedChoiceField.
- Default widget: 
NullBooleanField¶
- 
class NullBooleanField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: NullBooleanSelect
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python True,FalseorNonevalue.
- Validates nothing (i.e., it never raises a ValidationError).
 
- Default widget: 
RegexField¶
- 
class RegexField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object.
- Validates that the given value matches against a certain regular expression.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - Takes one required argument: - 
regex¶
- A regular expression specified either as a string or a compiled regular expression object. 
 - Also takes - max_length,- min_length, and- strip, which work just as they do for- CharField.- 
strip¶
- New in Django 1.9.Defaults to False. If enabled, stripping will be applied before the regex validation.
 
- Default widget: 
SlugField¶
- 
class SlugField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object.
- Validates that the given value contains only letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens.
- Error messages: required,invalid
 - This field is intended for use in representing a model - SlugFieldin forms.- Takes an optional parameter: - 
allow_unicode¶
- New in Django 1.9.A boolean instructing the field to accept Unicode letters in addition to ASCII letters. Defaults to False.
 
- Default widget: 
TimeField¶
- 
class TimeField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python datetime.timeobject.
- Validates that the given value is either a datetime.timeor string formatted in a particular time format.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - Takes one optional argument: - 
input_formats¶
- A list of formats used to attempt to convert a string to a valid - datetime.timeobject.
 - If no - input_formatsargument is provided, the default input formats are:- '%H:%M:%S', # '14:30:59' '%H:%M', # '14:30' 
- Default widget: 
URLField¶
- 
class URLField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: URLInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object.
- Validates that the given value is a valid URL.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - Takes the following optional arguments: - 
max_length¶
 - 
min_length¶
 - These are the same as - CharField.max_lengthand- CharField.min_length.
- Default widget: 
Slightly complex built-in Field classes¶
ComboField¶
- 
class ComboField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: A Unicode object.
- Validates the given value against each of the fields specified
as an argument to the ComboField.
- Error message keys: required,invalid
 - Takes one extra required argument: - 
fields¶
- The list of fields that should be used to validate the field’s value (in the order in which they are provided). - >>> from django.forms import ComboField >>> f = ComboField(fields=[CharField(max_length=20), EmailField()]) >>> f.clean('test@example.com') 'test@example.com' >>> f.clean('longemailaddress@example.com') Traceback (most recent call last): ... ValidationError: ['Ensure this value has at most 20 characters (it has 28).'] 
 
- Default widget: 
MultiValueField¶
- 
class MultiValueField(fields=(), **kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: TextInput
- Empty value: ''(an empty string)
- Normalizes to: the type returned by the compressmethod of the subclass.
- Validates the given value against each of the fields specified
as an argument to the MultiValueField.
- Error message keys: required,invalid,incomplete
 - Aggregates the logic of multiple fields that together produce a single value. - This field is abstract and must be subclassed. In contrast with the single-value fields, subclasses of - MultiValueFieldmust not implement- clean()but instead - implement- compress().- Takes one extra required argument: - 
fields¶
- A tuple of fields whose values are cleaned and subsequently combined into a single value. Each value of the field is cleaned by the corresponding field in - fields– the first value is cleaned by the first field, the second value is cleaned by the second field, etc. Once all fields are cleaned, the list of clean values is combined into a single value by- compress().
 - Also takes one extra optional argument: - 
require_all_fields¶
- Defaults to - True, in which case a- requiredvalidation error will be raised if no value is supplied for any field.- When set to - False, the- Field.requiredattribute can be set to- Falsefor individual fields to make them optional. If no value is supplied for a required field, an- incompletevalidation error will be raised.- A default - incompleteerror message can be defined on the- MultiValueFieldsubclass, or different messages can be defined on each individual field. For example:- from django.core.validators import RegexValidator class PhoneField(MultiValueField): def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs): # Define one message for all fields. error_messages = { 'incomplete': 'Enter a country calling code and a phone number.', } # Or define a different message for each field. fields = ( CharField( error_messages={'incomplete': 'Enter a country calling code.'}, validators=[ RegexValidator(r'^[0-9]+$', 'Enter a valid country calling code.'), ], ), CharField( error_messages={'incomplete': 'Enter a phone number.'}, validators=[RegexValidator(r'^[0-9]+$', 'Enter a valid phone number.')], ), CharField( validators=[RegexValidator(r'^[0-9]+$', 'Enter a valid extension.')], required=False, ), ) super(PhoneField, self).__init__( error_messages=error_messages, fields=fields, require_all_fields=False, *args, **kwargs ) 
 - 
widget¶
- Must be a subclass of - django.forms.MultiWidget. Default value is- TextInput, which probably is not very useful in this case.
 - 
compress(data_list)[source]¶
- Takes a list of valid values and returns a “compressed” version of those values – in a single value. For example, - SplitDateTimeFieldis a subclass which combines a time field and a date field into a- datetimeobject.- This method must be implemented in the subclasses. 
 
- Default widget: 
SplitDateTimeField¶
- 
class SplitDateTimeField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: SplitDateTimeWidget
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A Python datetime.datetimeobject.
- Validates that the given value is a datetime.datetimeor string formatted in a particular datetime format.
- Error message keys: required,invalid,invalid_date,invalid_time
 - Takes two optional arguments: - 
input_date_formats¶
- A list of formats used to attempt to convert a string to a valid - datetime.dateobject.
 - If no - input_date_formatsargument is provided, the default input formats for- DateFieldare used.- 
input_time_formats¶
- A list of formats used to attempt to convert a string to a valid - datetime.timeobject.
 - If no - input_time_formatsargument is provided, the default input formats for- TimeFieldare used.
- Default widget: 
Fields which handle relationships¶
Two fields are available for representing relationships between
models: ModelChoiceField and
ModelMultipleChoiceField.  Both of these fields require a
single queryset parameter that is used to create the choices for
the field.  Upon form validation, these fields will place either one
model object (in the case of ModelChoiceField) or multiple model
objects (in the case of ModelMultipleChoiceField) into the
cleaned_data dictionary of the form.
For more complex uses, you can specify queryset=None when declaring the
form field and then populate the queryset in the form’s __init__()
method:
class FooMultipleChoiceForm(forms.Form):
    foo_select = forms.ModelMultipleChoiceField(queryset=None)
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(FooMultipleChoiceForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['foo_select'].queryset = ...
ModelChoiceField¶
- 
class ModelChoiceField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: Select
- Empty value: None
- Normalizes to: A model instance.
- Validates that the given id exists in the queryset.
- Error message keys: required,invalid_choice
 - Allows the selection of a single model object, suitable for representing a foreign key. Note that the default widget for - ModelChoiceFieldbecomes impractical when the number of entries increases. You should avoid using it for more than 100 items.- A single argument is required: - 
queryset¶
- A - QuerySetof model objects from which the choices for the field will be derived, and which will be used to validate the user’s selection.
 - ModelChoiceFieldalso takes two optional arguments:- 
empty_label¶
- By default the - <select>widget used by- ModelChoiceFieldwill have an empty choice at the top of the list. You can change the text of this label (which is- "---------"by default) with the- empty_labelattribute, or you can disable the empty label entirely by setting- empty_labelto- None:- # A custom empty label field1 = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=..., empty_label="(Nothing)") # No empty label field2 = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=..., empty_label=None) - Note that if a - ModelChoiceFieldis required and has a default initial value, no empty choice is created (regardless of the value of- empty_label).
 - 
to_field_name¶
- This optional argument is used to specify the field to use as the value of the choices in the field’s widget. Be sure it’s a unique field for the model, otherwise the selected value could match more than one object. By default it is set to - None, in which case the primary key of each object will be used. For example:- # No custom to_field_name field1 = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=...) - would yield: - <select id="id_field1" name="field1"> <option value="obj1.pk">Object1</option> <option value="obj2.pk">Object2</option> ... </select> - and: - # to_field_name provided field2 = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=..., to_field_name="name") - would yield: - <select id="id_field2" name="field2"> <option value="obj1.name">Object1</option> <option value="obj2.name">Object2</option> ... </select> 
 - The - __str__(- __unicode__on Python 2) method of the model will be called to generate string representations of the objects for use in the field’s choices; to provide customized representations, subclass- ModelChoiceFieldand override- label_from_instance. This method will receive a model object, and should return a string suitable for representing it. For example:- from django.forms import ModelChoiceField class MyModelChoiceField(ModelChoiceField): def label_from_instance(self, obj): return "My Object #%i" % obj.id 
- Default widget: 
ModelMultipleChoiceField¶
- 
class ModelMultipleChoiceField(**kwargs)[source]¶
- Default widget: SelectMultiple
- Empty value: An empty QuerySet(self.queryset.none())
- Normalizes to: A QuerySetof model instances.
- Validates that every id in the given list of values exists in the queryset.
- Error message keys: required,list,invalid_choice,invalid_pk_value
 - The - invalid_choicemessage may contain- %(value)sand the- invalid_pk_valuemessage may contain- %(pk)s, which will be substituted by the appropriate values.- Allows the selection of one or more model objects, suitable for representing a many-to-many relation. As with - ModelChoiceField, you can use- label_from_instanceto customize the object representations.- A single argument is required: - 
queryset¶
- Same as - ModelChoiceField.queryset.
 - Takes one optional argument: - 
to_field_name¶
- Same as - ModelChoiceField.to_field_name.
 
- Default widget: 
Creating custom fields¶
If the built-in Field classes don’t meet your needs, you can easily create
custom Field classes. To do this, just create a subclass of
django.forms.Field. Its only requirements are that it implement a
clean() method and that its __init__() method accept the core arguments
mentioned above (required, label, initial, widget,
help_text).
You can also customize how a field will be accessed by overriding
get_bound_field().
 
          