Passing request.user in django forms error

Question

I have a function that allows you to create a message and send it . I have a Usermodel called person and it has a attribute called inbox . This attribute determines if the user would like to enable his inbox or not.

I have a form called NewMessageForm . I am trying to raise an error via form if the authenticated user has his inbox deactivated but in order to do so , I must obtain the request.user via form which is not allowing me to do so but only in views.

Can someone help me .

global name 'request' is not defined

File "C:\mysite\pet\forms.py" in clean_recipient
  329.             user = User.objects.get(user=request.user)

Exception Type: NameError at /create/
Exception Value: global name 'request' is not defined

models

class Person(models.Model):

inbox = (
        ('A', 'Activate'),
        ('D', 'Deactivate'),
        ('F', 'Permit To Friends Only'),
)

    user = models.ForeignKey(User)
    inbox = models.CharField(max_length=1, choices=inbox ,default='A')

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.user.username


class Thread(models.Model):
    subject = models.CharField(max_length=100, blank=True)
    user = models.ForeignKey(User)


class Message(models.Model):
    user = models.ForeignKey(User, related_name='sender')
    recipient = models.ForeignKey(User, related_name='recipient')
    created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    body = models.CharField(max_length=1000)
    read = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    sentmessage = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    thread = models.ForeignKey(Thread)
    draft = models.BooleanField(default=False)

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.body

forms

class NewMessageForm(forms.ModelForm):
    recipient = forms.CharField(required=False,max_length=15)
    message = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea,required=True,max_length=15)

    def clean_recipient(self):

            recipient = self.cleaned_data['recipient']
            user = User.objects.get(user=request.user)
            if person.inbox == D:
                    raise forms.ValidationError("You have deactivated your inbox , Please enable it at profile settings")
            if recipient:
                try:
                    recipient = User.objects.get(username=recipient)
                except User.DoesNotExist:
                    raise forms.ValidationError("This username does not exist")
                return recipient
            else:

                return recipient

views

@login_required
def Create(request):
    person = Person.objects.get(user=request.user)
    form = NewMessageForm()
    if request.POST.get('_send', False):
        form = NewMessageForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            recipient = form.cleaned_data['recipient']
            subject = form.cleaned_data['subject']
            message = form.cleaned_data['message']
            if recipient:
                thread = Thread.objects.create(subject=subject,user=request.user)
                recipient = User.objects.get(username=recipient)
                message = Message.objects.create(user=request.user,recipient=recipient,body=message,thread=thread,sentmessage=True,read=False)
                return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse('world:message'))
    return render(request,'create.html',{'messages':messages,'form':form,'person':person})

Answer 1

you could overwrite the __init__ of your form to require a request parameter:

class NewMessageForm(forms.ModelForm):

    def __init__(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        self.request = request
        super(NewMessageForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

And you instantiate your form in your view like this:

form = NewMessageForm(request)

and

form = NewMessageForm(request, request.POST)

now you have self.request in your NewMessageForm instance and can use self.request.user from it.