DRF Nested Objects serialization and creation - json

Question

I'm trying to create objects just by getting a json that have the objects nested in it,for example, I have a model with only one field that is name and im getting this json
{"name":"category1",
"children":[{
"name":"category1.1",
"children":[]},
{"name":"category1.2",
"children":[{"name":"category1.2.1",
"children":[]}]
}
]
}
What i'm trying to achieve is to read this,and create category objects that reference its parent or its children,
I've tried multiple solutions inspired from these answers but I can't seem to get close to getting the job done(Django rest framework nested self-referential objects -- How to create multiple objects (related) with one request in DRF?)
I've tried having the model with only name and a foreign key that reference the category itself,and I added recursive field to my serializer like this:
class RecursiveField(serializers.Serializer):
def to_representation(self, value):
serializer = self.parent.parent.__class__(value, context=self.context)
return serializer.data
class CategorySerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
subcategories = RecursiveField(many=True,allow_null=True)
class Meta:
model = Category
fields = ['name','subcategories']
def create(self, validated_data):
category = None
if len(validated_data['subcategories'])==0:
category = Category.objects.create(name=validated_data['name'])
else:
for i in range(len(validated_data['subcategories'])):
child = validated_data['subcategories']
child_list = list(child.items())
subcat = child_list[1]
if len(subcat)==0:
subcategory = Category.objects.create(name=child.get('name'))
category = Category.objects.create(name=validated_data['name'],children=subcategory)
return category
The best I got with this solution is being able to create the parent object,but I wasn't able to get the children objects instead I got an empty OrderedDict() (I only tried this solution to see if i can access the children but apparently i can't,I get an empty OrderedDict() in child variable)
Am I looking at this from the wrong prespective? or is my model architecture not suitable for this?
if not,what am i doing wrong

Answer 1

I think I found a solution that solves all the problems in my case,It's not the most optimized and if someone can share a better one I'm happy to check it out,but here is:
I went for thick view instead of a thick serializer,I kept the model as it is with 2 fields,name field and foreign key that references the parent,as for the serializer:
class CategorySerializer(serializers.Serializer):
name = serializers.CharField()
children = serializers.ListField()
I still have to add validators for the list field,as for the view I went for a recursive function that goes through all the children and adds them:
def post(self,request):
serializer = self.get_serializer(data=request.data)
serializer.is_valid(raise_exception=True)
parent = serializer
#creating the parent object
category = Category.objects.create(name=parent.validated_data['name'])
#saving the parent object's id
parent_id = category.id
#Checking if the item has children
children = parent.validated_data['children']
#if the parent doesn't have children nothing will happen
if children == None:
pass
#Call the recursion algorithm to create all the children
else:
self.recursion_creation(children,parent_id)
return Response({
"id":parent_id,
})
def recursion_creation(self,listOfChildren,parentId):
#This will go through all the children of the parent and create them,and create their children
for k in range(len(listOfChildren)):
name = listOfChildren[k].get("name")
#create the child
category = Category.objects.create(name=name,parent_id=parentId)
categoryId = category.id
#save it's id
children = listOfChildren[k].get("children")
#if this child doesn't have children the recursion will stop
if children==None:
pass
#else it will apply the same algorithm and goes through it's children and create them and check their children
else:
self.recursion_creation(children,categoryId)
I'm looking forward to any improvements or other answers that solve the problem.