AttributeError: 'CharField' object has no attribute 'use_required_attribute' - django-models

Question

I try to add a form-control class to an input field of a model-based form in Django, but I get this error message:
AttributeError: 'CharField' object has no attribute 'use_required_attribute'.
How do I fix this?
class in views.py:
class TweetCreate(LoginRequiredMixin, CreateView):
model = TweetSearch
fields = ['search_term', 'query_type', 'start_date', 'end_date', 'language', 'country']
def get_form(self):
form = super().get_form()
form.fields['search_term'].widget = forms.CharField(max_length=200, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}))
form.fields['query_type'].widget = forms.CharField(max_length=200, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}))
form.fields['start_date'].widget = DateTimePickerInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
form.fields['end_date'].widget = DateTimePickerInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
form.fields['language'].widget = forms.CharField(max_length=200, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})),
form.fields['country'].widget = forms.CharField(max_length=200, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})),
return form
class in models.py:
class TweetSearch(models.Model):
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
search_term = models.CharField(max_length=200, default='blue bird')
QUERY_CHOICES = (
('t', 'in tweet'),
('h', 'in hashtag'),
('u', 'username'),
)
id = models.UUIDField(primary_key=True, default=uuid.uuid4, blank=True)
query_type = models.CharField(max_length=1, choices=QUERY_CHOICES, blank=True, default='t')
start_default = datetime.now() - timedelta(days=30)
start_date = models.DateTimeField(default=start_default)
end_date = models.DateTimeField(default=datetime.now)
language = models.CharField(max_length=200, default='English')
country = models.CharField(max_length=200, default='USA')
searcher = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.SET_NULL, null=True, blank=True)
def get_absolute_url(self):
return reverse('tweet_detail', kwargs={'pk': self.pk})
def __str__(self):
return f"Tweets with the word {self.search_term} from {self.start_date} till {self.end_date} written in " \
f"{self.language} in {self.country}."
HTML:
<div class="container" id="searchcontainer" style="text-align: center">
<form action="" method="POST">
{% csrf_token %}
{{form.search_term}}
{{form.query_type}}
{{form.start_date}}
{{form.end_date}}
{{form.language}}
{{form.country}}
<input class="btn btn-primary" type="submit">
</form>
</div>

Answer 1

You are confusing form field with widgets. You should assign a widget like TextInput, not a form field like CharField, like:
class TweetCreateView(LoginRequiredMixin, CreateView):
model = TweetSearch
fields = ['search_term', 'query_type', 'start_date', 'end_date', 'language', 'country']
def get_form(self):
form = super().get_form()
form.fields['search_term'].widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
form.fields['query_type'].widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
form.fields['start_date'].widget=DateTimePickerInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
form.fields['end_date'].widget=DateTimePickerInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
form.fields['language'].widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
form.fields['country'].widget=forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'})
return form
It however here might be better to just plug in a ModelForm, so:
class TweetForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = TweetSearch
fields = ['search_term', 'query_type', 'start_date', 'end_date', 'language', 'country']
widgets = {
'search_term': forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}),
'query_type': forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}),
'start_date': DateTimePickerInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}),
'end_date': DateTimePickerInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}),
'language': forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}),
'country': forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control'}),
}
and plug this into the TweetCreateView:
class TweetCreateView(LoginRequiredMixin, CreateView):
model = TweetSearch
form_class = TweetForm
if you however only want to change the class, you can simplify this with:
class FormControlForm(forms.Form):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
for field in self.fields.values():
field.widget.attrs['class'] = 'form-control'
class TweetForm(FormControlForm, forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = TweetSearch
fields = ['search_term', 'query_type', 'start_date', 'end_date', 'language', 'country']