class Person(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField()
    address_streetname = models.CharField()
    address_housenumber = models.CharField()
    address_zip = models.CharField()
I have a django rest framework ModelSerializer that exposes all the fields.
But I would like to be able to serialize the address fields into a dict. So when serialized to json output would be:
    name: 'Some name',
    address: {
        streetname: 'This is a test',
        housenumber: '23',
        zip: '1337',
I tried creating creating a AddressSerializer
class Address(object):
class AddressSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
    streetname = serializers.CharField()
    housenumber = serializers.CharField()
    zip = serializers.CharField()
and then set the PersonSerializer.address to use the AddressSerializer
class PersonSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    address = AddressSerializer()
This results in my schema being correct. I generate swagger docs by using drf-yasg. It looks at the serializers to generate the correct model definitions. So the serializers needs to represent the schema.
So this is where I am at, at the moment. Obviously now it fails because there is no address property in the Person model. How would you go about solving this? 
  
The value source='*' has a special meaning, and is used to indicate
  that the entire object should be passed through to the field. This can
  be useful for creating nested representations, or for fields which
  require access to the complete object in order to determine the output
  representation.
So,try this,

class AddressSerializer(serializers.Serializer):
    streetname = serializers.CharField(source='address_streetname')
    housenumber = serializers.CharField(source='address_housenumber')
    zip = serializers.CharField(source='address_zip')
class PersonSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    # .... your fields
    address = AddressSerializer(source='*')
    class Meta:
        fields = ('address', 'other_fields')
        model = Person
class Person(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField()
    address_streetname = models.CharField()
    address_housenumber = models.CharField()
    address_zip = models.CharField()
    @property
    def address(self):
        return {'streetname': self.address_streetname,
                'housenumber': self.address_housenumber,
                'zip': self.address_zip}
                Yeah this would probably work fine for serialization. But not for deserialization. So my create/update actions would not work. Thanks though :)
– nkobber
                Jun 8 '18 at 8:47
        
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