CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonformsgoogle-app-enginegoogle-cloud-datastore
hyang123
hyang123

Reputation: 1280

HTML forms for (repeated=True) properties

How do I handle value(s) from a html form which is using a repeated=True property?

For example, I have this ndb.Model:

class Book(ndb.Model):
    title = ndb.StringProperty()
    genre = ndb.StringProperty(repeated = True)

With this form inside the new-book.html:

<form method="post">

    Book Title: <input type="text" name="title">
    Book Genre: <input type="text" name="genre">

    <input type="submit">

</form>

Is it appropriate to use the type="text" input? Do I ask users to "separate each genre with a comma", and then process this myself in the handler? What is the best practice for handling this type of property in html forms?

(I've asked a related question here about handling repeated StructuredProperty: Google AppEngine: Form handling 'repeated' StructuredProperty)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 184

Answers (2)

Smerk
Smerk

Reputation: 655

If you know all of the possible genres beforehand then a group of checkboxes or a select box would also work well.

Upvotes: 1

Josh
Josh

Reputation: 603

A good bare-bones solution is to yes, do a comma-separated approach. Obviously not the most elegant, but it'll work.

book.genre = self.request.get("genre").split(",")

Alternatively, if you repeat the form input field, you can reuse the same input 'name' and retrieve all of the values via self.request.get_all() in your handler. (See the docs)

book.genre = self.request.get_all("genre")

My favored approach is handling data over AJAX via JSON, which would remove the need for any handling other than creating an array of values in JavaScript.

import json
form_data = json.loads(form_data)
book.genre = form_data['genre']

Upvotes: 3

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