How to register users in Django REST framework?

Question

I\'m coding a REST API with Django REST framework. The API will be the backend of a social mobile app. After following the tutorial, I can serialise all my models and I am a

Answer 1

All of the answers so far create the user, then update the user's password. This results in two DB writes. To avoid an extra unnecessary DB write, set the user's password before saving it:

from rest_framework.serializers import ModelSerializer

class UserSerializer(ModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = User

    def create(self, validated_data):
        user = User(**validated_data)
        # Hash the user's password.
        user.set_password(validated_data['password'])
        user.save()
        return user

Answer 2

The simplest solution, working in DRF 3.x:

class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('id', 'username', 'password', 'email', 'first_name', 'last_name')
        write_only_fields = ('password',)
        read_only_fields = ('id',)

    def create(self, validated_data):
        user = User.objects.create(
            username=validated_data['username'],
            email=validated_data['email'],
            first_name=validated_data['first_name'],
            last_name=validated_data['last_name']
        )

        user.set_password(validated_data['password'])
        user.save()

        return user

No need for other changes, just make sure that unauthenticated users have the permission to create a new user object.

write_only_fields will make sure passwords (actually: their hash we store) are not displayed, while the overwritten create method ensures that the password is not stored in clear text, but as a hash.

Answer 3

A Python 3, Django 2 & Django REST Framework viewset based implementation:

File: serializers.py

from rest_framework.serializers import ModelSerializers
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model

UserModel = get_user_model()

class UserSerializer(ModelSerializer):
    password = serializers.CharField(write_only=True)

    def create(self, validated_data):
        user = UserModel.objects.create_user(
            username=validated_data['username'],
            password=validated_data['password'],
            first_name=validated_data['first_name'],
            last_name=validated_data['last_name'],
        )
        return user

    class Meta:
        model = UserModel
        fields = ('password', 'username', 'first_name', 'last_name',)

File views.py:

from rest_framework.viewsets import GenericViewSet
from rest_framework.mixins import CreateModelMixin
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from .serializers import UserSerializer

class CreateUserView(CreateModelMixin, GenericViewSet):
    queryset = get_user_model().objects.all()
    serializer_class = UserSerializer

File urls.py

from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter
from .views import CreateUserView

router = DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'createuser', CreateUserView)

urlpatterns = router.urls

Answer 4

I updated Cahlan's answer to support custom user models from Django 1.5 and return the user's ID in the response.

from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model

from rest_framework import status, serializers
from rest_framework.decorators import api_view
from rest_framework.response import Response

class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = get_user_model()

@api_view(['POST'])
def register(request):
    VALID_USER_FIELDS = [f.name for f in get_user_model()._meta.fields]
    DEFAULTS = {
        # you can define any defaults that you would like for the user, here
    }
    serialized = UserSerializer(data=request.DATA)
    if serialized.is_valid():
        user_data = {field: data for (field, data) in request.DATA.items() if field in VALID_USER_FIELDS}
        user_data.update(DEFAULTS)
        user = get_user_model().objects.create_user(
            **user_data
        )
        return Response(UserSerializer(instance=user).data, status=status.HTTP_201_CREATED)
    else:
        return Response(serialized._errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

Answer 5

A little late to the party, but might help someone who do not want to write more lines of code.

We can user the super method to achieve this.

class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

    password = serializers.CharField(
          write_only=True,
    )

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

    def create(self, validated_data):
        user = super(UserSerializer, self).create(validated_data)
        if 'password' in validated_data:
              user.set_password(validated_data['password'])
              user.save()
        return user

Answer 6

Django REST Framework 3 allow override create method in serializers:

from rest_framework import serializers
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model # If used custom user model

UserModel = get_user_model()


class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

    password = serializers.CharField(write_only=True)

    def create(self, validated_data):

        user = UserModel.objects.create(
            username=validated_data['username']
        )
        user.set_password(validated_data['password'])
        user.save()

        return user

    class Meta:
        model = UserModel
        # Tuple of serialized model fields (see link [2])
        fields = ( "id", "username", "password", )

Serialized fields for classes inherited from ModelSerializer must be declared patently in Meta for Django Rest Framework v3.5 and newest.

File api.py:

from rest_framework import permissions
from rest_framework.generics import CreateAPIView
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model # If used custom user model

from .serializers import UserSerializer


class CreateUserView(CreateAPIView):

    model = get_user_model()
    permission_classes = [
        permissions.AllowAny # Or anon users can't register
    ]
    serializer_class = UserSerializer