django-metachoices 0.2.0

A Django field extension that allows choices to have rich metadata beyond the standard (value, display) tuple

Django Meta Choices

A Django field extension that allows choices to have rich metadata beyond the standard (value, display) tuple.

Overview

Django's standard choice fields only support a simple key-value mapping. This package extends that functionality to allow arbitrary metadata for each choice, accessible through both:

• Dot notation (v0.2+): obj.status.color
• Getter methods (v0.1 compatible): obj.get_status_color()

Version 0.2 introduces a cleaner, class-based API while maintaining full backward compatibility with v0.1.

Example

Without metachoices

STATUS_CHOICES = {
    "ACTIVE": "Active",
    "INACTIVE": "Inactive",
}

class User(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    status = models.CharField(choices=STATUS_CHOICES)

# Usage
user = User.objects.create(name="John", status="ACTIVE")
print(user.status)                # "ACTIVE"
print(user.get_status_display())  # "Active"

With metachoices (v0.2 - Recommended)

from django.db import models
from metachoices import MetaChoices, MetaChoiceFieldV2

# Define choices as a class with metadata
class StatusChoices(MetaChoices):
    ACTIVE = {
        "value": "active",
        "display": "Active",
        "color": "#28a745",
        "description": "User is active and can access the system",
        "icon": "check-circle",
        "priority": 1,
    }
    INACTIVE = {
        "value": "inactive",
        "display": "Inactive", 
        "color": "#6c757d",
        "description": "User is inactive and cannot access the system",
        "icon": "x-circle",
        "priority": 2,
    }

class User(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    status = MetaChoiceFieldV2(StatusChoices, max_length=20)

# Usage - New dot notation API (v0.2)
user = User.objects.create(name="John", status="active")

print(user.status)                  # "active" (behaves like a string)
print(user.status == "active")      # True
print(user.status.display)          # "Active"
print(user.status.color)            # "#28a745"
print(user.status.description)      # "User is active and can access the system"
print(user.status.icon)             # "check-circle"
print(user.status.priority)         # 1

# Backward compatible - old getter methods still work!
print(user.get_status_display())      # "Active"
print(user.get_status_color())        # "#28a745"
print(user.get_status_description())  # "User is active and can access the system"

With metachoices (v0.1 - Dictionary Format)

from django.db import models
from metachoices import MetaChoiceField

# Define choices with rich metadata (v0.1 style)
STATUS_CHOICES = {
    "ACTIVE": {
        "display": "Active",
        "color": "#28a745",
        "description": "User is active and can access the system",
        "icon": "check-circle",
        "priority": 1,
    },
    "INACTIVE": {
        "display": "Inactive", 
        "color": "#6c757d",
        "description": "User is inactive and cannot access the system",
        "icon": "x-circle",
        "priority": 2,
    },
}

class User(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    status = MetaChoiceField(choices=STATUS_CHOICES)

# Usage
user = User.objects.create(name="John", status="ACTIVE")

print(user.status)                    # "ACTIVE"
print(user.get_status_display())      # "Active"
print(user.get_status_color())        # "#28a745"
print(user.get_status_description())  # "User is active and can access the system"
print(user.get_status_icon())         # "check-circle"
print(user.get_status_priority())     # 1

Features

• Rich Metadata: Add any number of attributes to your choices (description, url, icon, priority, etc.)
• Clean Dot Notation (v0.2): Access metadata with intuitive obj.field.attribute syntax
• Backward Compatible: v0.1 getter methods (get_<field>_<attr>()) still work in v0.2
• Class-Based Choices (v0.2): Define choices as Python classes for better IDE support
• Django Compatible: Works seamlessly with Django's existing choice field functionality
• Admin Integration: Fully compatible with Django admin
• Type Safe: Validates that field values are valid choice keys
• Auto-Detection: Automatically detects whether to use CharField or IntegerField based on choice values
• Python 3.13 Safe: Explicitly handles Windows + Python 3.13 compatibility issues

Installation

Install from PyPI:

pip install django-metachoices
# or with UV (recommended)
uv add django-metachoices

That's it! No need to add anything to INSTALLED_APPS - just import and use the field directly in your models.

API Comparison

Feature	v0.1 (Dictionary)	v0.2 (Class-Based)
Choice Definition	{"KEY": {...}}	class MyChoices(MetaChoices)
Field Import	MetaChoiceField	MetaChoiceFieldV2
Access Metadata	obj.get_field_attr()	obj.field.attr ✨
Backward Compatible	N/A	✅ Old methods still work
IDE Autocomplete	Limited	Better with dataclasses
Type Safety	Runtime	Runtime + better hints

Recommendation: Use v0.2 for new projects. v0.1 remains fully supported.

Requirements

• Python: 3.10+
• Django: 4.2+

Compatibility

This package is tested with:

• Python: 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13
• Django: 4.2 (LTS), 5.0, 5.1, 5.2

For local testing across multiple versions, we recommend using tox:

# Install development dependencies
uv add --group dev tox

# Test specific combinations
uv run tox -e py310-django42    # Python 3.10 + Django 4.2
uv run tox -e py312-django51    # Python 3.12 + Django 5.1
uv run tox -e py313-django52    # Python 3.13 + Django 5.2

# Test with multiple Python versions (requires installing them first)
uv python install 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13
uv run tox

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.