Django set field value after a form is initialized

I am trying to set the field to a certain value after the form is initialized.

For example, I have the following class.

class CustomForm(forms.Form):
	Email = forms.EmailField(min_length=1, max_length=200)

In the view, I want to be able to do something like this:

form = CustomForm()
form["Email"] = GetEmailString()

return HttpResponse(t.render(c))

Since you're not passing in POST data, I'll assume that what you are trying to do is set an initial value that will be displayed in the form. The way you do this is with the initial keyword.

form = CustomForm(initial={'Email': GetEmailString()})

See the Django Form docs for more explanation.

If you are trying to change a value after the form was submitted, you can use something like:

if form.is_valid():
    form.cleaned_data['Email'] = GetEmailString()

Check the referenced docs above for more on using cleaned_data

If you've already initialized the form, you can use the initial property of the field. For example,

form = CustomForm()
form.fields["Email"].initial = GetEmailString()

If you want to do it within the form's __init__ method for some reason, you can manipulate the initial dict:

class MyForm(forms.Form):
    my_field = forms.CharField(max_length=255)

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(MyForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.initial['my_field'] = 'Initial value'

Something like Nigel Cohen's would work if you were adding data to a copy of the collected set of form data:

form = FormType(request.POST)
if request.method == "POST":
    formcopy = form(request.POST.copy())
    formcopy.data['Email'] = GetEmailString()

If you have initialized the form like this

form = CustomForm()

then the correct way as of Jan 2019, is to use .initial to replace the data. This will replace the data in the intial dict that goes along with the form. It also works if you have initialized using some instance such as form = CustomForm(instance=instance)

To replace data in the form, you need to

form.initial['Email'] = GetEmailString()

Generalizing this it would be,

form.initial['field_name'] = new_value

Just change your Form.data field:

class ChooseProjectForm(forms.Form):
    project = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=project_qs)
    my_projects = forms.BooleanField()

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(ChooseProjectForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.data = self.data.copy()  # IMPORTANT, self.data is immutable
        # any condition:
        if self.data.get('my_projects'):
            my_projects = self.fields['project'].queryset.filter(my=True)
            self.fields['project'].queryset = my_projects
            self.fields['project'].initial = my_projects.first().pk
            self.fields['project'].empty_label = None  # disable "-----"
            self.data.update(project=my_projects.first().pk)  # Update Form data
            self.fields['project'].widget = forms.HiddenInput()  # Hide if you want

To throw yet another way into the mix: this works too, with a bit more modern notation. It just works around the fact that a QueryDict is immutable.

>>> the_form.data = {**f.data.dict(), 'some_field': 47}
>>> the_form['some_field'].as_widget()
'<input type="hidden" name="some_field" value="47"
        class="field-some_field" id="id_some_field">'

in widget use 'value' attr. Example:

username = forms.CharField(
    required=False,
    widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'readonly': True, 'value': 'CONSTANT_VALUE'}),
)

Another way to do this, if you have already initialised a form (with or without data), and you need to add further data before displaying it:

form = Form(request.POST.form)
form.data['Email'] = GetEmailString()