In a Django form, how do I make a field readonly (or disabled) so that it cannot be edited?

Question

In a Django form, how do I make a field read-only (or disabled)?

When the form is being used to create a new entry, all fields should be enabled - but when the recor

Answer 1

If you are working with Django ver < 1.9 (the 1.9 has added Field.disabled attribute) you could try to add following decorator to your form __init__ method:

def bound_data_readonly(_, initial):
    return initial


def to_python_readonly(field):
    native_to_python = field.to_python

    def to_python_filed(_):
        return native_to_python(field.initial)

    return to_python_filed


def disable_read_only_fields(init_method):

    def init_wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
        self = args[0]
        init_method(*args, **kwargs)
        for field in self.fields.values():
            if field.widget.attrs.get('readonly', None):
                field.widget.attrs['disabled'] = True
                setattr(field, 'bound_data', bound_data_readonly)
                setattr(field, 'to_python', to_python_readonly(field))

    return init_wrapper


class YourForm(forms.ModelForm):

    @disable_read_only_fields
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        ...

The main idea is that if field is readonly you don't need any other value except initial.

P.S: Don't forget to set yuor_form_field.widget.attrs['readonly'] = True