Order of Serializer Validation in Django REST Framework

Question

Situation

While working with validation in the Django REST Framework\'s ModelSerializer, I have noticed that the Meta.model

Answer 1

I don't believe the above solutions work any more. In my case, my model has fields 'first_name' and 'last_name', but the API will only receive 'name'.

Setting 'extra_kwargs' and 'validators' in the Meta class seems to have no effect, first_name and last_name are allways deemed required, and validators are always called. I can't overload the first_name/last_name character fields with

anotherrepfor_first_name = serializers.CharField(source=first_name, required=False)

as the names make sense. After many hours of frustration, I found the only way I could override the validators with a ModelSerializer instance was to override the class initializer as follows (forgive the incorrect indentation):

class ContactSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
name = serializers.CharField(required=True)

class Meta:
    model = Contact
    fields = [ 'name', 'first_name', 'last_name', 'email', 'phone', 'question' ]

def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
    self.fields['first_name'] = serializers.CharField(required=False, allow_null=True, allow_blank=True)
    self.fields['last_name'] = serializers.CharField(required=False, allow_null=True, allow_blank=True)
    return super(ContactSerializer, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

def create(self, validated_data):
    return Contact.objects.create()

def validate(self, data):
    """
    Remove name after getting first_name, last_name
    """
    missing = []
    for k in ['name', 'email', 'question']:
        if k not in self.fields:
            missing.append(k)
    if len(missing):
        raise serializers.ValidationError("Ooops! The following fields are required: %s" % ','.join(missing))
    from nameparser import HumanName
    names = HumanName(data['name'])
    names.capitalize()
    data['last_name'] = names.last
    if re.search(r'\w+', names.middle):
        data['first_name'] = ' '.join([names.first, names.middle]) 
    else:
        data['first_name'] = names.first
    del(data['name'])

    return data

Now the doc says that allowing blank and null with character fields is a no no, but this is a serializer, not a model, and as the API gets called by all kinds of cowboys, I need to cover my bases.