In Django how can I create a user and a user profile at the same time from a single form submission

Question

I am using extended version of the UserCreationForm to add users via my own template, which is working well.

I would also like to include, as part of the same form template, a custom field from my userprofile model, so that when the user is created a user profile with my custom field would also be created.

My approach to this has been to use two forms and combine them in one template with a single submit button.

The form displays exactly as I wanted, and returns validation errors correctly, but predictably it falls down when it comes to saving to the database. When I call save() on the user form the user is created, but of course when I try to save the userprofile form it throws an error because the user doesn't yet exist so it has not user associated to it.

Although I think I understand the cause of my problem, I am at a loss as to how to fix it, I am not even sure if the approach that I have taken is correct.

I have included all my code below including the model as well as the forms and the view just in case this helps anyone to better understand what I am trying to do:

UserProfile class (models.py)

LEVEL = (
    ('admin', 'administrator'),
    ('team', 'team leader'),
    ('member', 'team member'),
)

class UserProfile(models.Model):
    user = models.ForeignKey(User, unique=True)
    level = models.CharField(choices=LEVEL, max_length=20)

UserCreationForm and UserProfileForm classes (forms.py)

class UserCreationFormExtended(UserCreationForm): 
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs): 
        super(UserCreationFormExtended, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs) 
        self.fields['first_name'].required = True
        self.fields['last_name'].required = True

    class Meta: 
       model = User 
       fields = ('username', 'email', 'first_name', 'last_name') 


class UserProfileForm(forms.ModelForm):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(UserProfileForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)  

         self.fields["level"].choices = ( ('admin', 'administrator'), ('team', 'team leader'), ('member', 'team member') )

    class Meta:
        model = UserProfile

use_add view (views.py)

def user_add(request):

    if request.method == 'POST':
        uform = UserCreationFormExtended(request.POST)
        pform = UserProfileForm(request.POST)

        if uform.is_valid():

            uform.save()
            pform.save()

            return render_to_response('user/add_success.html', context_instance=RequestContext(request))

        else:
            return render_to_response('user/add.html', { 'uform' : uform, 'pform' : pform }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

    else:
        uform = UserCreationFormExtended()
        pform = UserProfileForm()

        return render_to_response('user/add.html', { 'uform' : uform, 'pform' : pform }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Answer 1

First, add exclude = ('user',) to the Meta class for ProfileForm. Then, in your view:

user_valid = uform.is_valid()
profile_valid = pform.is_valid()
if user_valid and profile_valid:
    user = uform.save()
    profile = pform.save(commit=False)
    profile.user = user
    profile.save()

Although it occurs to me that since you only have one field on the profile form, an easier way to do it is to forget that form completely, and just add the field to the user form:

class UserCreationFormExtended(UserCreationForm): 
    level = forms.ChoiceField(choices=LEVEL, max_length=20)
    ... etc...

if uform.is_valid():
    user = uform.save()
    profile = Profile.objects.create(user=user, level=uform.cleaned_data['level']))

Answer 2

There's a similar solution I found here: http://sontek.net/blog/detail/extending-the-django-user-model

Basically you just extend the default form UserCreationForm but keeping the same name. By doing it like this you dont have to add any new views or anything like that, it works seamlessly with the way Django's docs tell you to do UserProfiles.

Frankly, I don't understand why they explain how to add the fields to the admin page, and then don't tell you how to actually use those fields anywhere.