repoze.formapi 0.3

Minimalistic form library.

Overview

The repoze.formapi provides a form library which integrates with HTML forms instead of abstracting them away.

It provides a small framework to take you through the entire process of rendering a form, provide default values, validate and execute form actions.

Form fields are defined using Python base types which map out nested data structures with end points that are either integers, strings, floats or tuples of these. It’s up to the application to bridge these with more complex objects.

Documentation

To set up form fields, simply subclass and set the fields attribute.

>>> from repoze import formapi

>>> class TapeForm(formapi.Form):
...     """A form to edit a casette tape object."""
...
...     fields = {
...         'artist': unicode,
...         'title': unicode,
...         'asin': str,
...         'year': int,
...         'playtime': float}

Forms often do not have default values, for instance search forms or add forms.

>>> form = TapeForm()

The form data is available from the data attribute. Since we didn’t pass in a request, there’s no data available.

>>> form.data['artist'] is None
True

If a request comes in, the values are reflected in the form data. We can also validate the request against the form fields.

There’s no inherent concept of required fields, hence requests may provide zero or more field values.

We pass the request to the form as keyword argument.

>>> request = Request(
...    params=(('title', u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'),))

>>> form = TapeForm(request=request)

This request would set the title of the record on the form data object; since it’s a valid unicode string, we expect no validation errors.

>>> form.validate()
True

>>> form.data['title']
u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'

We’ll often want to initialize the form with default values. To this effect we pass in a dictionary object.

>>> data = {
...    'artist': u'Bachman-Turner Overdrive',
...    'title': u'Four Wheel Drive',
...    'asin': 'B000001FL8',
...    'year': 1975,
...    'playtime': 33.53}

>>> form = TapeForm(data)

The values are available in the data object.

>>> form.data['title']
u'Four Wheel Drive'

However, if we pass in the request from the former example, we’ll see that values from the request are used before the passed dictionary object is queried.

>>> form = TapeForm(data, request=request)

>>> form.data['title']
u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'

All updates to the data object are transient.

>>> data['title']
u'Four Wheel Drive'

We need to invoke the save method to commit the changes.

>>> form.data.save()

>>> data['title']
u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'

Extra validation

It is possible to create validation methods for more complex needs. These extra validators can be hooked up using the validator decorator.

>>> class CDForm(formapi.Form):
...     fields = {
...         'artist': unicode,
...         'title': unicode,
...         'asin': str,
...         'year': int,
...         'genre': str,
...         'playtime': float}
...
...     @formapi.validator
...     def check_genre(self):
...         if self.data['genre'] != 'rock':
...             yield 'Genre is invalid'

A validator can look at all the data that is available. This makes it easy to create validators that need to check multiple fields.

>>> form = CDForm()
>>> form.validate()
False

The errors attribute contains our error message.

>>> form.errors[0]
'Genre is invalid'

Errors can also be assigned to a specific field. To do this a validator can register itself for a specific field.

>>> class CDForm(formapi.Form):
...
...     fields = {
...         'artist': unicode,
...         'title': unicode,
...         'asin': str,
...         'year': int,
...         'genre': str,
...         'playtime': float}
...
...     @formapi.validator('genre')
...     def check_genre(self):
...         if self.data['genre'] != 'rock':
...             yield 'Genre is invalid'

When this form is validated it will have the error available for the specific field.

>>> form = CDForm()
>>> form.validate()
False

>>> form.errors['genre'][0]
'Genre is invalid'

Form submission

If a form prefix has not been set, the request is applied by default. However, most applications will want to set a form prefix and require explicit form submission.

A form submits a “default action” if the prefix is submitted as a parameter.

>>> request = Request(params=(
...    ('tape_form', ''),
...    ('title', u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'),))

>>> form = TapeForm(request=request, prefix='tape_form')

>>> form.data['title']
u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'

As expected, if we submit a form with a different prefix, the request is not applied.

>>> form = TapeForm(request=request, prefix='other_form')

>>> form.data['title'] is None
True

We can also define form actions on the form class itself.

>>> class TapeAddForm(TapeForm):
...     """An add-form for a casette tape."""
...
...     @formapi.action
...     def handle_add(self, data):
...         print "add"
...
...     @formapi.action("add_and_edit")
...     def handle_add_and_edit(self, data):
...         print "add_and_edit"

The first action is a “default action”; if we submit the request we set up before, this action will be read to be submitted.

>>> form = TapeAddForm(request=request, prefix='tape_form')
>>> form.actions
[<Action name="" submitted="True">,
 <Action name="add_and_edit" submitted="False">]

To call the form handler of the submitted action, we invoke the form’s call method.

>>> form()
add

To call the named form action, there must be a parameter in the request which is a concatenation of the prefix and the form action name. Accepted separation characters are ‘.’ (dot), ‘_’ (underscore) and ‘-’ (dash).

>>> request = Request(params=(
...    ('tape_form-add_and_edit', ''),
...    ('title', u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'),))

>>> form = TapeAddForm(request=request, prefix='tape_form')
>>> form.actions
[<Action name="" submitted="False">,
 <Action name="add_and_edit" submitted="True">]

>>> form()
add_and_edit

Data proxies

We can bind a context object to a data object by using a proxy object. This technique can be used to create edit or add-forms.

To illustrate this, let’s define a content object. We’ll hardcode default values for simplicity.

>>> class Tape(object):
...    artist = u'Bachman-Turner Overdrive'
...    title = u'Four Wheel Drive'
...    asin = 'B000001FL8'
...    year = 1975
...    playtime = 33.53

We can now create a data proxy for an instance of this class.

>>> tape = Tape()
>>> proxy = formapi.Proxy(tape)

With no further intervention, this data object acts as a proxy to read and write attributes on the content object.

>>> proxy.title
u'Four Wheel Drive'

>>> proxy.title = u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'

>>> tape.title
u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'

If we want to have more control over this process, we can subclass and define descriptors.

The following example defines custom behavior for the title attribute; the value is uppercased.

>>> class TapeProxy(formapi.Proxy):
...     def get_title(self):
...         return self.title
...
...     def set_title(self, value):
...         self.title = value.upper()
...
...     title = property(get_title, set_title)

>>> proxy = TapeProxy(tape)

If we read and write to the title attribute of this proxy object, the custom getter and setter functions are used.

>>> proxy.title = u'Motorcity Detroit USA Live'

As would be expected from a proxy, changes are actually made to the underlying content object.

>>> tape.title
u'MOTORCITY DETROIT USA LIVE'

Saving form data

When instantiating a form, you can pass in a proxy object instead of data. This binds the data object to the proxy, but it also allows us to save the form data on the proxied object.

>>> form = TapeForm(proxy, request=request)

>>> form.data['title'] = u'Four Wheel Drive'

Assignment behaves logically.

>>> form.data['title']
u'Four Wheel Drive'

However, if we invoke the save action, changes take effect on the proxied object.

>>> form.data.save()

>>> tape.title
u'FOUR WHEEL DRIVE'