is_valid() vs clean() django forms

Question

In the process of finding a way to validate my django forms, I came across two methods is_valid() and clean() in the django docs. Can anyone enlighten me the how they are di

Answer 1

Just wanted to add that the best way now to add an error to a form you're manually validating in is_valid() is to use Form.add_error(field, error) to conform with Django's ErrorDict object.

Doing

self._errors['field'] = ['error message']

will come out funky when rendering {{form.errors}}, like:

fielderror messsage

instead of the expected

field
    -error message

so instead do:

self.add_error('email', 'Email is already in use')

See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/forms/api/#django.forms.Form.add_error