ChoiceField doesn't display an empty label when using a tuple

user_211075 0
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What I'm trying to do

I'm going to be keeping data about competitions in my database. I want to be able to search the competitions by certain criteria - competition type in particular.

About competition types

Competition types are kept in a tuple. A slightly shortened example:

COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES = (
    (1, 'Olympic Games'),
    (2, 'ISU Championships'),
    (3, 'Grand Prix Series'),
)

These are used in the model like so (again - this is a shortened/simplified version of the model):

class Competition(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=256)
    type = models.IntegerField(choices=COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES)

The search form

I don't want the fields to be required in the search form, so the form is defined like this:

class CompetitionSearchForm(forms.Form):
    name = forms.CharField(required=False)
    type = forms.ChoiceField(choices=COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES,required=False)

The problem

I'd like the select widget in ChoiceField to display an empty label, but I don't get one. Any help with this would be much appreciated :)

django-forms django python
8 Answers

Better choice is to update field choices in form init method

COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES = (
    (1, 'Olympic Games'),
    (2, 'ISU Championships'),
    (3, 'Grand Prix Series'),
)


class CompetitionSearchForm(forms.Form):
    name = forms.CharField(required=False)
    type = forms.ChoiceField(choices=COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES,required=False)

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(CompetitionSearchForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['type'].choices.insert(0, ('','---------' ) )
user_2680970

Just a small change to Evgeniy's answer that checks if the blank alternative is not already added.

Without the check (at least when running the builtin runserver) one extra empty label is added for each page reload.

COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES = (
    (1, 'Olympic Games'),
    (2, 'ISU Championships'),
    (3, 'Grand Prix Series'),
)

class CompetitionSearchForm(forms.Form):
    name = forms.CharField(required=False)
    type = forms.ChoiceField(choices=COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES,required=False)

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(CompetitionSearchForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        if not self.fields['type'].choices[0][0] == '':
            self.fields['type'].choices.insert(0, ('','---------' ) )
user_5377110

A little late to the party..

How about not modifying the choices at all and just handling it with a widget?

from django.db.models import BLANK_CHOICE_DASH

class EmptySelect(Select):
    empty_value = BLANK_CHOICE_DASH[0]
    empty_label = BLANK_CHOICE_DASH[1]

    @property
    def choices(self):
        yield (self.empty_value, self.empty_label,)
        for choice in self._choices:
            yield choice

    @choices.setter
    def choices(self, val):
        self._choices = val

Then just call it:

class CompetitionSearchForm(forms.Form):
    name = forms.CharField(required=False)
    type = forms.ChoiceField(choices=COMPETITION_TYPE_CHOICES,required=False, widget=EmptySelect)

This is what you end up with:

print(CompetitionSearchForm().as_p())
<p>
    <label for="id_name">Name:</label>
    <input id="id_name" name="name" type="text" />
</p>
<p>
    <label for="id_type">Type:</label>
    <select id="id_type" name="type">
        <option value="" selected="selected">------</option>
        <option value="1">Olympic Games</option>
        <option value="2">ISU Championships</option>
        <option value="3">Grand Prix Series</option>
    </select>
</p>
user_54493640
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