Add "strip" keyword argument to CharField constructor

[tzellman@…]

I am suggesting that a strip keyword (or something similar) gets added to the CharField constructor in newforms/fields.py.

This would allow for certain fields to get stripped before being cleaned.
Example: Assume you have a CharField with min_length set to 3. Typing in 3 spaces will be valid, which in some cases is fine. But other times, you want to strip the whitespace. This way, a field filled with spaces will be considered to be empty, if the "strip" argument is True.

This is only a suggestion, but it would be nice to have. I know that I could easily sub-class and create my own "StrippedCharField", and that might be the right way to go, but I thought this might be a common issue for other people as well.

Thanks!

[tzellman@…]

Patch containing example addition of "strip" keyword to CharField

[tzellman@…]

Attached is another alternative, as I mentioned:

class StrippedCharField(forms.CharField):
    def __init__(self, max_length=None, min_length=None, strip=True, *args, **kwargs):
        super(StrippedCharField, self).__init__(max_length, min_length, *args, **kwargs)
        self.strip = strip

    def clean(self, value):
        if self.strip:
            value = value.strip()
        return super(StrippedCharField, self).clean(value)

[Adrian Holovaty]

Marking as wontfix -- it's too specialized for inclusion in the main library. A bunch of us in #django-sprint agreed.

[Tim Graham]

Reopening per ​https://groups.google.com/d/topic/django-developers/D1GBj9VB9sk/discussion

​PR

[Daniel Ward]

Uploading patches with potential solution and follow-up tests. Public documentation patches can be produced if solution accepted.

[Daniel Ward]

Follow-up tests

[Daniel Ward]

Potential solution by adding in 'strip' option to CharField

[Tim Graham]

I guess you missed the more extensive ​pull request that was already proposed. It still needs some improvements.

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In 11cac1b:

Fixed #4960 -- Added "strip" option to CharField

[Thomas Güttler]

Thank you very much. I will use the "strip" option in most of my fields.

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In e7c6a2cf:

Refs #4960 -- Fixed selenium test failures for CharField strip changes.

[Chris Lamb]

Should the default really be "True"? Somewhat backward incompatibile / unexpected change.

[Tim Graham]

That was the conclusion of the django-developers thread linked in comment 6. Feel free to raise the issue there if you disagree.