Problem getting JSON response to contain JSON API data attribute, etc.

I am using Django REST Framework JSON API:

https://github.com/django-json-api/django-rest-framework-json-api

I have the following model:

class Question(BaseModel):
    text = models.TextField(unique=True)
    members = models.ManyToManyField(Member, related_name='questions')

    def __str__(self):
        return self.text

    class JSONAPIMeta:
        resource_name = "questions"


class Answer(BaseModel):
    text = models.TextField(blank=True)
    icon = models.TextField()
    question = models.ForeignKey(Question, related_name='answers')

    def __str__(self):
        return self.text or self.icon

    class JSONAPIMeta:
        resource_name = "answers"

and the following serializers:

class AnswerSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Answer
        fields = ('text', 'icon')


class QuestionSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    answers = AnswerSerializer(many=True, read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = Question
        fields = ('text', 'answers')

and the following views:

class QuestionViewSet(viewsets.ReadOnlyModelViewSet):
    """
    API endpoint that allows questions and answers to be read.
    """
    queryset = Question.objects.all()
    serializer_class = QuestionSerializer
    renderers = renderers.JSONRenderer
    parsers = parsers.JSONParser

However, when I test the API asking for pk=1, the JSON response does not conform to the JSON API specs:

{"text": "Are you dizzy?", "answers": [{"text": "No", "icon": "icon-no"}, {"text": "A little dizzy", "icon": "icon-dizzy-somewhat"}, {"text": "Very dizzy", "icon": "icon-dizzy-very"}]}

I’m importing the various renderers and parsers from the DRF JSON API package, and the endpoints are being generated by the viewset. How can I make the responses contain the proper data attribute and conform to the JSON API spec?

[leifurhauks]

An unfortunate peculiarity of the django test client is that headers need to be in the WSGI format, thus HTTP_ACCEPT instead of Accept. I had the same problem once; I ended spending about two or three hours debugging with the test client before I figured that out.

[davidthewatson]

Thanks, again.

Turns out that setting the accept header to application/vnd.api+json generates a 406. That surprised me and seems to suggest that the JSON API renderers are not hooked up.

And I was puzzling over the plurality of the attributes in renderers and parsers with the singularity of the rvalues. I changed to the tuple spec as you suggested, but the results are still the same.

I even restarted the django debug server because it seemed weird. Then I ran with renderers and parsers removed and the client side result was the same.

Then I decided to look at the base classes. BINGO! It’s not renderers and parsers. It’s:

renderer_classes = (renderers.JSONRenderer,)
parser_classes = (parsers.JSONParser,)

And then the response looked like this, of course:

{
  "data": {
    "type": "questions",
    "id": "1",
    "attributes": {
      "text": "Are you dizzy?"
    },
    "relationships": {
      "answers": {
        "data": [
          {
            "type": "answers",
            "id": "1"
          },
          {
            "type": "answers",
            "id": "2"
          },
          {
            "type": "answers",
            "id": "3"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }

Now I can’t even find the code example that I copied this pattern from. It may not exist! Sorry for the trouble @leifurhauks, but thanks for the debugging help. I’d be happy to make a pull request on the docs with the specific viewset example so that this never happens again.