Object custom field data should return instances for object and multi-object custom fields

[abhi1693]

NetBox version

3.2.9

Feature type

Change to existing functionality

Proposed functionality

I think it could need a change for the CustomFieldMixin to work. Because get_custom_fields returns a dict where the key is the object and not the field name.

Use case

I am trying to build a custom link URL which requires querying custom object attributes. I want to access the site.slug on the custom object assigned to ClusterGroup via a plugin model, something like

object.get_custom_fields()['field_name'].site.slug

Database changes

No response

External dependencies

No response

[jeremystretch]

Unpacking the specific use, it seems the goal here is for object.cf to return a properly deserialized version of object and multi-object fields (rather than the PK or list of PKs, respectively). This should be doable, I think, by running custom_field_data through deserialize() for each field.

This would technically be a breaking change, however I can also see an argument that this is more of bug fix than a feature request.

[renatoalmeidaoliveira]

I guess the main problem here is that cf returns the pk and the get_custom_fields returns a dict with the keys equals the object and not the custom field name.
One option could be create a new method that returns a dict with keys equals the field name and the value the object or list of objects, like get_custom_relations that way there're no major changes in the core code.

[github-actions]

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[jeremystretch]

I've tweaked the cf attribute so that it now returns deserialized values (i.e. objects instead of their IDs):

>>> tenant=Tenant.objects.get(pk=5)
>>> tenant.cf
{'primary_site': <Site: DM-NYC>, 'cust_id': 'DMI01', 'is_active': True}