Passing django request object as arg or kwarg?

Question

I'm not sure if this is a django/drf question or just a simple Python question with handling args/kwaargs..

I created a function that alters some fields on incoming JSON and I am trying to call it from a POST method in my views.py

The issue is I need the function to handle a variable number of variables as well as the django request object and I am not sure how to handle this without getting an error.

Here is my current code:

in views.py

def post(self, request, person, city, format=None):
    request = PreSerializer(request, person, city)
    serializer = CreateRecordSerializer(data=request.data)
    if serializer.is_valid():

PreSerializer function

def PreSerializer(request, *args):
    
    if person = "david":
        person = 1:

    # Converts strings in JSON to foreignkey ID's
    if 'name' in request.data:
        person_record = get_object_or_404(Person, name=[request.data['person'])
        request.data["person"] = person_record.id

    if 'city' in request.data:
        city_record = get_object_or_404(City, name=request.data['city])
        request.data["city"] = city_record.id
    return request

I believe the issue is related to (request, *args)

Error

if person
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'person' referenced before assignment

Answer 1

You can either change the signature of your function to include person

def PreSerializer(request, person, *args):
    if person = "david":
        ...

Or, if you can get person from args.

def PreSerializer(request, *args):
    person = args[0]
    if person == "david":
        ...