drf-recursive

Django REST Framework Recursive (Fork)

This repository is the friendly fork of the original django-rest-framework-recursive by heywbj. As the original repo is no longer being actively maintained, we've friendly forked it here to undertake maintenance for modern versions of Python, Django, and Django Rest Framework.

This package provides a RecursiveField that enables you to serailize a tree, linked list, or even a directed acyclic graph. It also supports validation, deserialization, ModeSerializer, and multi-step recursive structures.

Example Usage

Tree Recursion

from rest_framework import serializers
from django_rest_framework_recursive.fields import RecursiveField

class TreeSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
    name = serializers.CharField()
    children = serializers.ListField(child=RecursiveField())

Linked List Recursion

from rest_framework import serializers
from django_rest_framework_recursive.fields import RecursiveField

class LinkSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
    name = serializers.CharField(max_length=25)
    next = RecursiveField(allow_null=True)

Further use cases are documented in the tests, see [here][tests] for more usage examples

Prerequisites

This package supports:

• Python 3.10, 3.11, 3.12
• Django 3.2, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 5.0, 5.1
• Django Rest Framework 3.12, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15

For an exact list of tested version combinations, see the valid_version_combinations set in the noxfile

During development you will also need:

• uv installed as a system package.
• pre-commit 3 (Optional, but strongly recommended)

Installation

Install using pip...

pip install drf-recursive

Local development

When making changes please remember to update the CHANGELOG.md, which follows the guidelines at [keepachangelog]. Add your changes to the [Unreleased] section when you create your PR.

[keepachangelog]: https://keepachangelog.com/

Installation

Ensure one of the above Pythons is installed and used by the python executable:****

python --version
Python 3.10.13   # or any of the supported versions

Ensure uv is installed as a system package. This can be done with pipx or Homebrew.

Then create and activate a virtual environment. If you don't have any other way of managing virtual environments this can be done by running:

uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate

You could also use virtualenvwrapper, direnv or any similar tool to help manage your virtual environments.

Once you are in an active virtual environment run

make dev

This will set up your local development environment, installing all development dependencies.

Testing (single Python version)

To run the test suite using the Python version of your virtual environment, run:

make test

Testing (all supported Python versions)

To test against multiple Python (and package) versions, we need to:

• Have nox installed outside of the virtualenv. This is best done using pipx:

  pipx install nox
  

• Ensure that all supported Python versions are installed and available on your system (as e.g. python3.10, python3.11 etc). This can be done with pyenv.

Then run nox with:

nox

Nox will create a separate virtual environment for each combination of Python and package versions defined in noxfile.py.

To list the available sessions, run:

nox --list-sessions

To run the test suite in a specific Nox session, use:

nox -s $SESSION_NAME

Static analysis

Run all static analysis tools with:

make lint

Auto formatting

Reformat code to conform with our conventions using:

make format

Dependencies

Package dependencies are declared in pyproject.toml.

• package dependencies in the dependencies array in the [project] section.
• development dependencies in the dev array in the [project.optional-dependencies] section.

For local development, the dependencies declared in pyproject.toml are pinned to specific versions using the requirements/development.txt lock file.

Adding a new dependency

To install a new Python dependency add it to the appropriate section in pyproject.toml and then run:

make dev

This will:

1. Build a new version of the requirements/development.txt lock file containing the newly added package.
2. Sync your installed packages with those pinned in requirements/development.txt.

This will not change the pinned versions of any packages already in any requirements file unless needed by the new packages, even if there are updated versions of those packages available.

Remember to commit your changed requirements/development.txt files alongside the changed pyproject.toml.

Removing a dependency

Removing Python dependencies works exactly the same way: edit pyproject.toml and then run make dev.

Updating all Python packages

To update the pinned versions of all packages simply run:

make update

This will update the pinned versions of every package in the requirements/development.txt lock file to the latest version which is compatible with the constraints in pyproject.toml.

You can then run:

make dev

to sync your installed packages with the updated versions pinned in requirements/development.txt.

Updating individual Python packages

Upgrade a single development dependency with:

uv pip compile -P $PACKAGE==$VERSION pyproject.toml --extra=dev --output-file=requirements/development.txt

You can then run:

make dev

to sync your installed packages with the updated versions pinned in requirements/development.txt.

Versioning

This project uses SemVer for versioning with no additional suffix after the version number. When it is time for a new release, run the command make version_{type} where {type} should be replaced with one of major, minor, patch depending on the type of changes in the release.

The command will update the version in pyproject.toml and move the changes from the "Unreleased" section of the changelog to a versioned section and create a new "Unreleased" section for future improvements.