JSON serializers not working in Django

Question

Hay, serializers is not returning JSON object

    make = Make.objects.filter(slug__exact=make)
    models = Model.objects.filter(make=make).values('slug','name')

    json_models = serializers.get_serializer("json")()
    json_models.serialize(models)

    return HttpResponse(json_models.getvalue())

I'm getting an error

'dict' object has no attribute '_meta'

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The serializer is meant to be used on QuerySet instances. Use django.utils.simplejson.dumps() if you have a normal Python structure.

Answer 2

As the other answer hints, its because .values(...) returns a list and serializers is meant for Querysets. However you can still do this without needing raw SimpleJSON quite simply:

queryset = Model.objects.filter(make__slug__exact=make)
return serializers.serialize("json", queryset, fields=('slug', 'name'))

We're basically telling the serializer to do the field-limiting instead of letting the Queryset doing it. I've used some shortcuts in there to cut the query down to one line too but that's up to you.