Multiple Models in Django Rest Framework?

Question

I am using Django Rest framework. I want to serialize multiple models and send them as a response. Currently I can send only one model per view (like CartView below sends only Cart object). Following models (unrelated) can be there.

class Ship_address(models.Model):
   ...

class Bill_address(models.Model):
   ...

class Cart(models.Model):
   ...

class Giftwrap(models.Model):
   ...

I tried using DjangoRestMultipleModels, it works ok but has some limitations. Is there any in-built way? Can't I append to the serializer that's created in the following view?

from rest_framework.views import APIView

class CartView(APIView):
    """
    Returns the Details of the cart
    """

    def get(self, request, format=None, **kwargs):
        cart = get_cart(request)
        serializer = CartSerializer(cart)
        # Can't I append anything to serializer class like below ??
        # serializer.append(anotherserialzed_object) ??
        return Response(serializer.data)

I really like DRF. But this use-case (of sending multiple objects) makes me wonder if writing a plain-old Django view will be better suited for such a requirement.

Solution

You can customize it, and it wouldn't be too weird, because this is an APIView (as opposed to a ModelViewSet from which a human being would expect the GET to return a single model) e.g. you can return several objects from different models in your GET response

def get(self, request, format=None, **kwargs):
    cart = get_cart(request)
    cart_serializer = CartSerializer(cart)
    another_serializer = AnotherSerializer(another_object)

    return Response({
        'cart': cart_serializer.data,
        'another': another_serializer.data,
        'yet_another_field': 'yet another value',
    })

Comments

[latsha]

I would be so thankful if you will extend your answer with how to make it work with pagination.