There are many ways to convert an instance to a dictionary, with varying degrees of corner case handling and closeness to the desired result.
1. instance.__dict__
instance.__dict__ which returns
{'_foreign_key_cache': <OtherModel: OtherModel object>, '_state': <django.db.models.base.ModelState at 0x7ff0993f6908>, 'auto_now_add': datetime.datetime(2018, 12, 20, 21, 34, 29, 494827, tzinfo=<UTC>), 'foreign_key_id': 2, 'id': 1, 'normal_value': 1, 'readonly_value': 2} This is by far the simplest, but is missing many_to_many, foreign_key is misnamed, and it has two unwanted extra things in it.
2. model_to_dict
from django.forms.models import model_to_dict model_to_dict(instance) which returns
{'foreign_key': 2, 'id': 1, 'many_to_many': [<OtherModel: OtherModel object>], 'normal_value': 1} This is the only one with many_to_many, but is missing the uneditable fields.
3. model_to_dict(..., fields=...)
from django.forms.models import model_to_dict model_to_dict(instance, fields=[field.name for field in instance._meta.fields]) which returns
{'foreign_key': 2, 'id': 1, 'normal_value': 1} This is strictly worse than the standard model_to_dict invocation.
4. query_set.values()
SomeModel.objects.filter(id=instance.id).values()[0] which returns
{'auto_now_add': datetime.datetime(2018, 12, 20, 21, 34, 29, 494827, tzinfo=<UTC>), 'foreign_key_id': 2, 'id': 1, 'normal_value': 1, 'readonly_value': 2} This is the same output as instance.__dict__ but without the extra fields. foreign_key_id is still wrong and many_to_many is still missing.
5. Custom Function
The code for django's model_to_dict had most of the answer. It explicitly removed non-editable fields, so removing that check and getting the ids of foreign keys for many to many fields results in the following code which behaves as desired:
from itertools import chain def to_dict(instance): opts = instance._meta data = {} for f in chain(opts.concrete_fields, opts.private_fields): data[f.name] = f.value_from_object(instance) for f in opts.many_to_many: data[f.name] = [i.id for i in f.value_from_object(instance)] return data While this is the most complicated option, calling to_dict(instance) gives us exactly the desired result:
{'auto_now_add': datetime.datetime(2018, 12, 20, 21, 34, 29, 494827, tzinfo=<UTC>), 'foreign_key': 2, 'id': 1, 'many_to_many': [2], 'normal_value': 1, 'readonly_value': 2} 6. Use Serializers
Django Rest Framework's ModelSerializer allows you to build a serializer automatically from a model.
from rest_framework import serializers class SomeModelSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer): class Meta: model = SomeModel fields = "__all__" SomeModelSerializer(instance).data returns
{'auto_now_add': '2018-12-20T21:34:29.494827Z', 'foreign_key': 2, 'id': 1, 'many_to_many': [2], 'normal_value': 1, 'readonly_value': 2} This is almost as good as the custom function, but auto_now_add is a string instead of a datetime object.
Bonus Round: better model printing
If you want a django model that has a better python command-line display, have your models child-class the following:
from django.db import models from itertools import chain class PrintableModel(models.Model): def __repr__(self): return str(self.to_dict()) def to_dict(instance): opts = instance._meta data = {} for f in chain(opts.concrete_fields, opts.private_fields): data[f.name] = f.value_from_object(instance) for f in opts.many_to_many: data[f.name] = [i.id for i in f.value_from_object(instance)] return data class Meta: abstract = True So, for example, if we define our models as such:
class OtherModel(PrintableModel): pass class SomeModel(PrintableModel): normal_value = models.IntegerField() readonly_value = models.IntegerField(editable=False) auto_now_add = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True) foreign_key = models.ForeignKey(OtherModel, related_name="ref1") many_to_many = models.ManyToManyField(OtherModel, related_name="ref2") Calling SomeModel.objects.first() now gives output like this:
{'auto_now_add': datetime.datetime(2018, 12, 20, 21, 34, 29, 494827, tzinfo=<UTC>), 'foreign_key': 2, 'id': 1, 'many_to_many': [2], 'normal_value': 1, 'readonly_value': 2}