Django: Displaying form errors under a certain field during clean()

For the most part, the forms class works pretty well. Unless you're trying to specify exactly where an error should show up in the clean() function...

If you're using fieldname_clean() methods, then this isn't a problem.

However, during your clean() method you find that it makes more sense to target an error towards a certain field, you can't do it by simply raising a forms.ValidationError.

Luckily, it's still relatively simple to do.

def clean(self):
data = self.cleaned_data

# This error shows up under form.non_field_errors
try:
shirt = Shirt.objects.get(title__iexact = data['title'])
raise forms.ValidationError("A shirt with a similar name already exists.")
except Shirt.DoesNotExist:
pass

# Show an error under the "description" field
self._errors["description"] = self.error_class(forms.ValidationError("error message of your choice).messages)

return data

Now you're able to specify error messages to any field in the form.

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