Why serializer only works for QuerySet

[Leon Sasson]

Django serializer works really well when you need to serialize a QuerySet, but often times I need to serialize a JSON object with more than just a QuerySet.

This leads me to serialize the QuerySet, and then load it again to a python dict and then serialize it again. Like this:

peopleJSON = serializers.serialize("json", people_queryset)
people_dict = simplejson.loads(peopleJSON )
json = simplejson.dumps({'foo': foo, 'people':people_dict})

A better way would be:

data = {'foo':foo, 'people':people_queryset}

json = serializers.serialize("json", data)

Is there a reason not to allow this behavior? I can't think of one.

[Daniel Roseman]

You can pretty much get what you want already by using the `python` serializer and then dumping the whole load to JSON:

    qs = serializers.serialize("python", people_queryset)

    json = simplejson.dumps({"foo": foo, "people": qs})

--

DR. 

[Leon Sasson]

That would definitely work.

I guess it's missing from the docs — only 'xml', 'json', and 'yaml' formats are documented. The 'python' serialization format was documented until version 1.1, but then removed, although it is still implemented as of 1.6.