Django REST Framework - How to Properly Handle Nested Serializer Validation for Complex Relationships
This might be a silly question, but Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy... I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple... I'm building a Django REST Framework application with nested serializers for a `Book` model that has a foreign key relationship with an `Author` model. The challenge I'm facing is properly validating the nested data during the creation of a book. When I send a POST request with nested author data, I get the error 'The fields author must be a list of items.' Here's the serializer setup: ```python class AuthorSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer): class Meta: model = Author fields = ['id', 'name'] class BookSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer): author = AuthorSerializer() class Meta: model = Book fields = ['id', 'title', 'author'] def create(self, validated_data): author_data = validated_data.pop('author') author, created = Author.objects.get_or_create(**author_data) book = Book.objects.create(author=author, **validated_data) return book ``` I've tried to validate the input by checking if the author data is being sent as a dictionary rather than a list, but I still encounter the same error when making a request like this: ```json { "title": "New Book Title", "author": { "name": "John Doe" } } ``` I would greatly appreciate any insights into how I can handle this nested validation properly. Is there something I'm missing in my serializer definition? Additionally, I would like to know how to handle cases where the author already exists in the database without creating duplicates. I'm using Django 4.0 and Django REST Framework 3.13. Any ideas what could be causing this? This is part of a larger application I'm building. I'm developing on macOS with Python. Could this be a known issue?