Django basic form submits successfully, but it doesn't update the datebase

Question

As a test run after reading through Django for Beginners, I am trying to make a server with custom D&D character sheets. Here is my the relevant fields in my model (keep in mind that I have other fields, I just didn't list them for simplicity):

from django.db import models
from django.urls import reverse
from django.conf import settings
from django.core.exceptions import ValidationError
from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as gtl
import json



class charSheet(models.Model):
    # character's name
    char_name = models.CharField(max_length=45)

    # player's name which is the key that will
    # group together different character sheets
    # together
    author = models.ForeignKey(
        settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL,
        on_delete=models.CASCADE,
    )

Here is my forms.py:

from django import forms
from .models import charSheet


class CharacterForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = charSheet
        # fields = [field.name for field in charSheet._meta.get_fields() if field.name != "author"]
        # fields = "__all__"
        fields = ["char_name", "author"]

and the relevant part of my views.py

class CharacterCreateView(LoginRequiredMixin, UserPassesTestMixin, CreateView):
    model = charSheet
    template_name = "character_new.html"
    fields = [
        field.name for field in charSheet._meta.get_fields() if field.name != "author"
    ]

    def form_valid(self, form):
        form.instance.author = self.request.user
        return super().form_valid(form)

    def test_func(self):
        obj = self.get_object()
        return obj.author == self.request.user

Here is my urls.py

rom django.urls import path
from .views import (
    CharacterListView,
    CharacterDetailView,
    CharacterCreateView,
    CharacterUpdateView,
    CharacterDeleteView,
    CharacterDetailTestingView,
)

urlpatterns = [
    path("", CharacterListView.as_view(), name="home"),
    path(
        "<str:author>/character/<int:pk>/",
        CharacterDetailView.as_view(),
        name="character_details",
    ),
    path(
        "character/new/",
        CharacterCreateView.as_view(),
        name="character_new",
    ),
    path(
        "<str:author>/character/<int:pk>/edit",
        CharacterUpdateView.as_view(),
        name="character_update",
    ),
    path(
        "<str:author>/character/<int:pk>/delete",
        CharacterDeleteView.as_view(),
        name="character_delete",
    ),
    path(
        "<str:author>/character/<int:pk>/testing",
        CharacterDetailTestingView.as_view(),
        name="character_details_testing",
    ),
]

Last but not least, my incredibly complicated html template:

{% extends "base.html" %} {% block content %} {% load crispy_forms_tags %}
<div class="character-entry">
   <form method="post"> {% csrf_token %}
      <div class="form-group col-md-6 mb-0">
         hello {{ charsheet.author }}
         <label for="{{ form.char_name.id_for_label }}"> character name</label>
            {{ form.char_name }}
            {% if form.char_name.errors %}
               <div class="invalid-feedback">{{ form.char_name.errors | as_crispy_field }}</div>
            {% endif %}
      </div>
      <button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">Submit</button>
   </form>
</div>
<p>
   <a href="{% url 'character_update' author=charsheet.author pk=charsheet.pk %}">+ Update Character</a>
</p>
<p>
   <a
      href="{% url 'character_delete' author=charsheet.author pk=charsheet.pk %}"
      >
   + Delete Character</a
      >
</p>
<p>
   <a
      href="{% url 'character_details_testing' author=charsheet.author pk=charsheet.pk %}"
      >
   + testing html</a>
</p>
{% endblock content %}

I'm not sure why, because it posts through and I get a code 200 meaning it got the form, but my database is not updating. What should I do to fix this or at least diagnose this?

I tried writing print statements to see what gets called, and it seems everything is going through. I'm trying to figure out how to use HttpResponse, and I tried implementing in the view a get and post method, but I think I'm just doing them wrong. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It's not redirecting, which normally means the form wasn't valid. If so your answer will be somewhere in form.errors. I would suggest either

Temporarily replace your complicated HTML by a simple {{form.as_p}} to see what it says (I'm guessing at a non-field-error), or

Add print( form.errors) to your view. You'll have to subclass form_invalid to do this

def form_invalid( self, form):
    print( form.errors ) # for debugging
    return super().form_invalid( form)