Migration from drf-flex-fields

If you are currently using the original drf-flex-fields package, migrating to drf-flex-fields2 is straightforward and requires minimal changes to your codebase.

Installation

Assuming you are using pip for dependency management. Adapt to your package manager, as needed:

  1. Uninstall the old package:

    pip uninstall drf-flex-fields

  2. Install drf-flex-fields2:

    pip install drf-flex-fields2

Update Imports

Replace all imports of rest_flex_fields with rest_flex_fields2 throughout your codebase.

If you imported symbols from the package root, update those to module-level imports instead. Package-level re-exports were removed to fix import cycles during Django initialization.

Before:

from rest_flex_fields import FlexFieldsModelSerializer

After (module-level import):

from rest_flex_fields2.serializers import FlexFieldsModelSerializer

Update Django Settings

In your Django settings.py rename the variable REST_FLEX_FIELDS to REST_FLEX_FIELDS2.

API Compatibility

The drf-flex-fields2 API is fully compatible with the original drf-flex-fields package. All serializers, mixins, filters, and configuration options work exactly the same way.

Stability: No breaking changes are planned in the foreseeable future.

Future guarantee: If breaking changes ever become necessary, the drf-flex-fields2 project will strictly follow semantic versioning. This means you can safely update to patch and minor versions (e.g., from 2.0.0 to 2.1.5) without worrying about breaking changes. Breaking changes will only occur in major version releases (e.g., 2.x to 3.0), and will be clearly documented in the changelog.

Testing Your Migration

After updating the imports, run your test suite to ensure everything works correctly:

python manage.py test

If you don’t have tests yet, we recommend adding them to your project to catch any integration issues early.

Troubleshooting

Import errors after migration?

  • Ensure you’ve updated all imports from rest_flex_fields to rest_flex_fields2

  • Replace package-level imports with module-level imports (for example, from rest_flex_fields2.serializers import FlexFieldsModelSerializer)

  • Run grep -rP "rest_flex_fields(?!2)" . to find any remaining old imports

  • Check virtualenv/venv activation: pip list | grep drf-flex-fields

Other issues?

  • Check the issue tracker

  • The project is actively maintained and we’re happy to help!