How to serialize hierarchical relationship in Django REST
django, django-mptt, django-rest-framework, python, serialization
Solution
In DRF you can use a serializer as a field in another serializer. However, recursion is not possible.
Tom Christie posted a solution on another question (Django rest framework nested self-referential objects). His solution will also work with your problem.
In your UOMCategorySerializer.Meta class you specify the fields you want to use, also list the parent and/or children field(s) there. Then you use Tom Christies solution.
In your case this would give:
class UOMCategorySerializer(ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = UOMCategory
fields = ('name', 'description', 'parent', 'children')
Tom Christies solution: By specifying what field to use for parent and/or children, you avoid using too much (and possibily endless) recursion:
UOMCategorySerializer.base_fields['parent'] = UOMCategorySerializer()
UOMCategorySerializer.base_fields['children'] = UOMCategorySerializer(many=True)
The above works for me in a similar situation.
Problem
I have a Django model that is hierarchical using django-mptt, which looks like: ``` class UOMCategory(MPTTModel, BaseModel): """ This represents categories of different unit of measurements. """ name = models.CharField(max_length=50, unique=True) description = models.CharField(max_length=50, unique=True) parent = TreeForeignKey('self', null=True, blank=True, related_name='%(app_label)s_%(class)s_sub_uom_categories') ``` The problem now is I created a REST API using Django REST Framework; how do I make sure that parent field returns serialized data? Here is the Model Serializer: ``` class UOMCategorySerializer(BaseModelSerializer): """ REST API Serializer for UOMCategory model """ class Meta: model = UOMCategory ```