Django Rest Framework and JSONField

Question

Given a Django model with a JSONField, what is the correct way of serializing and deserializing it using Django Rest Framework?

I\'ve already tried crating a custom

Answer 1

serializers.WritableField is deprecated. This works:

from rest_framework import serializers
from website.models import Picture


class PictureSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    json = serializers.SerializerMethodField('clean_json')

    class Meta:
        model = Picture
        fields = ('id', 'json')

    def clean_json(self, obj):
        return obj.json

Answer 2

If you're using Django Rest Framework >= 3.3, then the JSONField serializer is now included. This is now the correct way.

If you're using Django Rest Framework < 3.0, then see gzerone's answer.

If you're using DRF 3.0 - 3.2 AND you can't upgrade AND you don't need to serialize binary data, then follow these instructions.

First declare a field class:

from rest_framework import serializers

class JSONSerializerField(serializers.Field):
    """ Serializer for JSONField -- required to make field writable"""
    def to_internal_value(self, data):
        return data
    def to_representation(self, value):
        return value

And then add in the field into the model like

class MySerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    json_data = JSONSerializerField()

And, if you do need to serialize binary data, you can always the copy official release code

Answer 3

In 2.4.x:

from rest_framework import serializers # get from https://gist.github.com/rouge8/5445149

class WritableJSONField(serializers.WritableField):
    def to_native(self, obj):
        return obj


class MyModelSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    my_json_field = WritableJSONField() # you need this.

Answer 4

For the record, this "just works" now if you are using PostgreSQL, and your model field is adjango.contrib.postgres.JSONField.

I'm on PostgreSQL 9.4, Django 1.9, and Django REST Framework 3.3.2.

I have previously used several of the other solutions listed here, but was able to delete that extra code.

Example Model:

class Account(models.Model):
    id = UUIDField(primary_key=True, default=uuid_nodash)
    data = JSONField(blank=True, default="")

Example Serializer:

class AccountSerializer(BaseSerializer):
    id = serializers.CharField()
    class Meta:
        model = Account
        fields = ('id','data')

Example View:

class AccountViewSet(
    viewsets.GenericViewSet,
    mixins.CreateModelMixin,      
    mixins.RetrieveModelMixin,
    mixins.ListModelMixin,
    mixins.UpdateModelMixin,
    mixins.DestroyModelMixin
): 
    model = Account
    queryset = Account.objects.all()
    serializer_class = AccountSerializer
    filter_fields = ['id', 'data']

Answer 5

Mark Chackerian script didn't work for me, I'd to force the json transform:

import json

class JSONSerializerField(serializers.Field):
    """ Serializer for JSONField -- required to make field writable"""

    def to_internal_value(self, data):
        json_data = {}
        try:
            json_data = json.loads(data)
        except ValueError, e:
            pass
        finally:
            return json_data
    def to_representation(self, value):
        return value

Works fine. Using DRF 3.15 and JSONFields in Django 1.8