Forms: multiple text input with same names

Using Django Forms & APIs
1

Hello hello,

Imagine a form like this:

<form action="{% url 'somewhere' %}" method="post">
<ul>
    <li>
        <label for="mytext0"></label>
        <input type="text" value="" name="mytext" id="mytext0">
        <button type="button">Add a new text</button>
    </li>
</ul>
</form>

When the user clicks the button Add a new text, some javascript dynamically populate the form so it becomes:

<form action="{% url 'somewhere' %}" method="post">
<ul>
    <li>
        <label for="mytext0">My text</label>
        <input type="text" value="" name="mytext" id="mytext0">
        <button type="button">Add a new text</button>
    </li>
    <li>
        <label for="mytext1">My text</label>
        <input type="text" value="" name="mytext" id="mytext1">
        <button type="button">Add a new text</button>
    </li>
</ul>
</form>

… and so on.

Notice the text inputs have the same name attribute.

In GET method, this would work and result in a query string similar to ?mytext=foo&mytext=bar.

In POST method, this would result in something like:

-----------------------------44380802120381848453673825967
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="mytext"

bar
-----------------------------44380802120381848453673825967
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="mytext"

foo
-----------------------------44380802120381848453673825967--

Now how to handle this dynamically in django? [As far as I know, cleaned_data does not support getlist() for CharField? (please tell me I’m wrong!) ]

  • In the clean() method of the form
  • in the form_valid method of the view

Thanks!

2

That is correct - however, you can retrieve the values from request.POST.getlist()

3

mm thanks Ken.

But then does that mean it suddenly becomes impossible (?) to leverage the form.Fields in the form declaration for individual “instances” of these inputs?

4

What “leverage” are you talking about here?

What you’re creating isn’t a CharField, it’s actually closer to a SplitArrayField. (Perhaps not exactly, but as an idea to build from.)

What isn’t clear yet is what you’re going to do with this data after it has been submitted - that may provide more clarity.

5

nothing fancy, the end result is n rows, one for each text input that was POSTed (I am simplifying but that’s the base mechanism).

Wondering if I could do smth along the lines of:

theform(forms.Form):
   text = formsCharField(...)

   def clean(self):
       texts = self.data.getlist('text', [])
       for txt in texts:
           pass
           # validate using the CharField above
           # if valid, add to cleaned_data
       
        return cleaned_data # to be used in the view
6

Actually, if you’re talking about creating multiple instances of a model from these, you’d be better served using a formset. That’s why they exist.