SpireTextChoices

Purpose: Extend Django's TextChoices with a JSON serialization method for easy frontend integration and API responses.

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Why SpireTextChoices?

Django's TextChoices is perfect for defining field choices, but frontend code often needs choices in JSON format for dropdowns, filters, and form population. SpireTextChoices adds a single method that converts your choices to JSON automatically, eliminating serialization boilerplate.

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Quick Start

1. Define Your Choices

from django_spire.contrib.choices import SpireTextChoices


class TaskStatusChoices(SpireTextChoices):
    NEW = 'new', 'New'
    IN_PROGRESS = 'inp', 'In Progress'
    DONE = 'com', 'Complete'
    CANCELLED = 'can', 'Cancelled'

2. Use in Models

from django.db import models
from myapp.choices import TaskStatusChoices


class Task(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    status = models.CharField(
        max_length=3,
        choices=TaskStatusChoices.choices,
        default=TaskStatusChoices.NEW,
    )

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

3. Get JSON for Frontend

# Python
json_choices = TaskStatusChoices.to_glue_choices()
# Returns: '[["new", "New"], ["inp", "In Progress"], ["com", "Complete"], ["can", "Cancelled"]]'

# In an API view
from django.http import JsonResponse
from myapp.choices import TaskStatusChoices


def task_choices_api(request):
    return JsonResponse({
        'status_choices': TaskStatusChoices.to_glue_choices(),
    })

Frontend receives:

{
  "status_choices": [
    ["new", "New"],
    ["inp", "In Progress"],
    ["com", "Complete"],
    ["can", "Cancelled"]
  ]
}

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What You Get

SpireTextChoices inherits everything from Django's TextChoices:

Feature	Available?	Example
Named constants	✓	TaskStatusChoices.NEW
.choices property	✓	TaskStatusChoices.choices
.names property	✓	TaskStatusChoices.names
.values property	✓	TaskStatusChoices.values
.labels property	✓	TaskStatusChoices.labels
.to_glue_choices() method	✓	New! JSON output