id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
4091	"Not able to get choices widget to auto selected=""selected"" on model_for_instance"	no@…	nobody	"It may have to do how I have my models defined (such as the __str__() function), but if I use form_for_instance
on an instance with a model that has foreign keys, it will not put selected=""selected"" on the appropriate choices.
Here are my models:

{{{
class Students(models.Model):
    ssn = models.CharField(unique=True, maxlength=11)
    name = models.CharField(blank=True, maxlength=50)
    address = models.CharField(blank=True, maxlength=50)
    dob = models.DateField(null=True, blank=True)
    email = models.CharField(blank=True, maxlength=50)
    level = models.CharField(blank=True, maxlength=5)
    
    def __str__(self):
      return self.ssn

class Courses(models.Model):
    cid = models.CharField(unique=True, maxlength=7)
    level = models.CharField(blank=True, maxlength=5)
    description = models.TextField(blank=True, maxlength=100)
    
    def __str__(self):
      return self.cid

class Semesters(models.Model):
    sname = models.CharField(unique=True, maxlength=20)
    
    def __str__(self):
      return self.sname

class Takes(models.Model):
    student = models.ForeignKey(Students, to_field='ssn', db_index=True, db_column='ssn')
    course = models.ForeignKey(Courses, to_field='cid', db_index=True, db_column='cid')
    semester = models.ForeignKey(Semesters, to_field='sname', db_index=True, db_column='sname')
    grade = models.CharField(blank=True, maxlength=2)
    
    def __str__(self):
      return ""%s - %s"" % (self.course.cid, self.semester.sname)
}}}

Now I want to do a form_for_instance on a Takes instance and I expect the appropriate student, course, and semester to have selected=""selected""
in the html.
So now I do this:

{{{
instance = Takes.objects.get(id=1)
formClass = forms.form_for_instance(instance)
form = formClass(auto_id='form_%s')
print form
}}}

And I get no selected=""selected"". Now I've studied the documentation thoroughly, and they said this happens
when they are not ""bound"". However, I thought form_for_instance makes it bound? Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug?

To circumvent this problem, I've resorted to the following:

{{{
formClass = forms.form_for_instance(instance)
for field in formClass.base_fields:
  if hasattr(formClass.base_fields[field], 'choices'):
    for option_value, option_label in formClass.base_fields[field].choices:
      if formClass.base_fields[field].initial == option_label:
        formdict.update({field: option_value})
        break
  else:
    formdict.update({field: formClass.base_fields[field].initial})
}}}

The above code does exactly what I want, it puts the selected=""selected"" on the right choices."		closed	Forms	0.96		worksforme	foreignkey selected choices		Accepted	0	0	0	0	0	0