Overriding Field.__deepcopy__ for RegexField

[kchang]

Problem:

Serializers are deepcopying a declared RegexField[source], but it'll error out with the message. TypeError: cannot deepcopy this pattern object.

[tomchristie]

Wondering if it'd instead be simpler to handle all this logic alongside the similar 'validators' special casing in Field.__deepcopy__?

[ruiwen]

Hi there,

Wondering if there's been a decision made on this? I'm running into the same deepcopy issue with RegexFields.

Having regex taken out of kwargs

    def __init__(self, regex, **kwargs):
        super(RegexField, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        <..snip..>

doesn't seem to avoid them being in self._kwargs

 def __new__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
        """
        When a field is instantiated, we store the arguments that were used,
        so that we can present a helpful representation of the object.
        """
        <..snip..>
        instance._kwargs = kwargs
        return instance

and it's self._kwargs that actually ends up being deepcopy()ed in __deepcopy__

    def __deepcopy__(self, memo):
        """
        When cloning fields we instantiate using the arguments it was
        originally created with, rather than copying the complete state.
        """
        args = copy.deepcopy(self._args)
        kwargs = dict(self._kwargs)
        <..snip..>
        kwargs = copy.deepcopy(kwargs)
        <..snip..>

[tomchristie]

Bumping up the priority to ensure this gets reviewed sometime over the coming weeks.

[ruiwen]

To add on, this happens only when I'm using a compiled regex object as the regex argument (either as a positional parameter, or as a keyword argument).

Using a pattern string works fine

eg.

import re
USERNAME_RE = re.compile(r"[a-z0-9]+")

username = serializers.RegexField(regex=USERNAME_RE)  # This eventually fails

username = seriazliers.RegexField(regex=USERNAME_RE.pattern)  # This works

[tomchristie]

Noted. Thanks!