Formsets for multiple forms in Django - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Formsets for multiple forms

📖 Scenario: You are building a Django web page where users can enter multiple books at once. Each book has a title and an author. You want to use Django formsets to handle multiple book forms on the same page.

🎯 Goal: Create a Django formset to display and process multiple book forms together.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Django form class called BookForm with fields title and author

Create a formset class called BookFormSet using formset_factory with BookForm

Instantiate BookFormSet with 3 extra forms

Render the formset in a template inside a <form> tag with a submit button

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Formsets let users submit multiple similar forms at once, like adding several books or contacts in one page.

💼 Career

Understanding formsets is important for Django developers building complex forms and admin interfaces.

1

Create the BookForm class

Create a Django form class called BookForm with two fields: title and author, both as CharField.

Django

# Create BookForm class here

Need a hint?

Use forms.Form as the base class. Define title and author as forms.CharField().

2

Create the BookFormSet using formset_factory

Import formset_factory from django.forms and create a formset class called BookFormSet using formset_factory with BookForm.

Django

from django import forms
from django.forms import formset_factory

class BookForm(forms.Form):
    title = forms.CharField()
    author = forms.CharField()

# Create BookFormSet here

Need a hint?

Use formset_factory(BookForm) to create BookFormSet.

3

Instantiate BookFormSet with 3 extra forms

Create an instance of BookFormSet called formset with extra=3 to show 3 empty forms.

Django

from django import forms
from django.forms import formset_factory

class BookForm(forms.Form):
    title = forms.CharField()
    author = forms.CharField()

BookFormSet = formset_factory(BookForm)

# Instantiate formset with 3 extra forms

Need a hint?

Call BookFormSet(extra=3) and assign it to formset.

4

Render the formset in a template with a submit button

Write a Django template snippet that renders the formset inside a <form> tag with method post. Include the management form with {{ formset.management_form }}, loop over formset.forms to render each form, and add a submit button with text Submit Books.

Django

{% comment %} Render formset inside a form with POST method {% endcomment %}

  {% csrf_token %}
  {{ formset.management_form }}
  {% for form in formset.forms %}
    {{ form.as_p }}
  {% endfor %}
  Submit Books

Need a hint?

Use {{ formset.management_form }} for hidden fields. Loop over formset.forms to render each form with {{ form.as_p }}. Add a submit button inside the form.