django-metachoices 0.1.5

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, which can be accessed through dynamically generated getter methods.

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) # The normal CharField with choices


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

# Access choice data as usual
print(user.status)                    # The database stored value, "ACTIVE"
print(user.get_status_display())      # The human-readable display value, "Active"

With metachoices

from django.db import models
from metachoices import MetaChoiceField

# Define choices with rich metadata
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) # Use MetaChoiceField with choices instead of CharField

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

# Access choice data as usual
print(user.status)                    # The database stored value, "ACTIVE"
print(user.get_status_display())      # The human-readable display value, "Active"

# With richer capabilities!
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.)
• Dynamic Getters: Automatically generates get_<field>_<attribute>() methods for all metadata attributes
• 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 keys

Installation

Install from PyPI:

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

Add to your Django project's INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ... other apps
    'metachoices',
]

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.