Form class __init__ not working

Question

I have this form class :

class MyForm(forms.Form):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.notvalidate = kwargs.pop('notvalidate',False)
        super(MyForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

    email = forms.EmailField(widget=forms.TextInput(attrs=dict(attrs_dict,maxlength=75)))
    (...)

    if not notvalidate:        
        def clean_email(self):
            email = self.cleaned_data.get("email")
            if email and User.objects.filter(email=email).count() > 0:
                raise forms.ValidationError(
                    _(u"Email already used."))
            return email

Although in init I set self.notvalidate value to either True(if was given) or False inside the body of MyForm I'm getting name 'notvalidate' is not defined (or if I check for self.notvalidate - name 'self' is not defined). What is wrong ?

Answer 1

Move the if not notvalidate into the clean_email method, and reference it using self.notvalidate.

    def clean_email(self):
       if not self.notvalidate:   
           email = self.cleaned_data.get("email")
           if email and User.objects.filter(email=email).count() > 0:
                raise forms.ValidationError(
                    _(u"Email already used."))
        return email

Also, you may want to rename the flag to should_validate_email and lose the negation.

Answer 2

What are you trying to achieve is changing the class level attribute clean_email but you want to do that using instance attribute self.notvalidate, so you are doing contradictory things here. Simplest way to not validate would be to check in clean_email and return e.g

def clean_email(self):
    if self.notvalidate:
        return

     ....

But if due to some mysterious reason you do not want clean_mail method to be existing in the class at all, you need to create a class using metaclass or simpler way would be to call a function to create class e.g.

def createFormClass(validate):
    class MyClass(object):
        if validate:
            def clean_email(self):
                pass

    return MyClass

MyClassValidated = createFormClass(True)
MyClassNotValidated = createFormClass(False)

Though I will strongly suggest NOT to do this.

Answer 3

Change notvalidate to self.notvalidate.