Issue in Django 1.8.5 model class

[Nitish Nandanan]

Hi Team,

I am a Django developer. I am using Django 1.8.5 version to develop my application. I am facing one issue with Django model class. I have one model class and it's returning a text value. If any invalid characters (eg:- '→' ) are included in this return text value, Django will throwing an error. Its huge impact on my application.

We have a UI interface to enter value to this model class. By mistake any user is entering invalid charactes or copy and pasting some text value from other sources, chances to include invalid characters into this field. I can see that by default Django doesn't have any validation for prevent this invalid characters. Instead of this, its directly throwing the error.

Below is one sample model class which I am using in my application,

class Subgroup(models.Model):
    subgroupname = models.TextField(max_length=50,null=True,blank=True)
    description = models.TextField(null = True,blank = True)
    workgroup = models.ForeignKey(Workgroup)
    rowstamp = models.IntegerField(null=True, blank=True)
    active = models.BooleanField(default=True)
    group_leader = models.ForeignKey(UserProfile, null=True, blank=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.subgroupname

    class Meta:
        verbose_name_plural = "Subgroups"

The above model class "Subgroup Name" is the return value. We have a our own admin interface area to enter this subgroup name and values for the above model class. If any invalid characters (eg:- '→' ) included in the subgroup name, Django will throw below error

Error message:

** encoding, errors)\nUnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\\u2013' in position 11: ordinal not in range(128)**

I think Django doesn't have any in-built error handling if any invalid characters included in the model value.

I am requesting you to check this issue on priority and suggest us a solution for this

Please let me know if you need any additional information

Thanks & Regards
Nitish Nandanan

[Tim Graham]

Hi, there's aren't sufficient details here to point to a bug in Django. It seems more likely that you've made a mistake in your application. Please use our support channels to get help and reopen the ticket with more details if that investigation reveals that Django is at fault.

[Simon Charette]

I looks like you are using Python 2 to return a unicode from your __str__ method. If you are using Python you should define a __unicode__ method instead.