How to do a multi-step form in Django?

Question

I would like to create a mutli-step form in Django that only submits the data for processing at the end of all the steps. Each step needs to be able to access and display data that we entered in previous step(s).

Is there a way to do this with Django? Django's Form-Wizard can't handle this basic functionality.

Answer 1

Of course there's a way to do this in Django.

One way is to hold your values in session until you submit them at the end. You can populate your forms using values held in session if you return to previous step.

With some searching, you may find an app that someone has already written that will do what you want, but doing what you need isn't hard to do with Django, or any other framework.

Example, ignoring import statements:

#models/forms

class Person(models.Model):
    fn = models.CharField(max_length=40)

class Pet(models.Model):
    owner = models.ForeignKey(Person)
    name = models.CharField(max_length=40)

class PersonForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Person

class PetForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Pet
        exclude = ('owner',)

#views
def step1(request):
    initial={'fn': request.session.get('fn', None)}
    form = PersonForm(request.POST or None, initial=initial)
    if request.method == 'POST':
        if form.is_valid():
            request.session['fn'] = form.cleaned_data['fn']
            return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse('step2'))
    return render(request, 'step1.html', {'form': form})

def step2(request):
    form = PetForm(request.POST or None)
    if request.method == 'POST':
        if form.is_valid():
            pet = form.save(commit=False)
            person = Person.objects.create(fn=request.session['fn'])
            pet.owner = person
            pet.save()
            return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse('finished'))
    return render(request, 'step2.html', {'form': form})

We'll assume that step2.html has a link to go back to step1.html.

You'll notice in the step1 view I'm pulling the value for fn from session that was set when the form was saved. You would need to persist the values from all previous steps into the session. At the end of the steps, grab the values, create your objects and redirect to a finished view, whatever that might be.

None of this code has been tested, but it should get you going.