From 26b6180f5047e965383553177cd5cd7938bbe63e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Tom Christie <tom@tomchristie.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2014 10:28:34 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Support None if initial part of dotted lookup returns None.
 Closes #1223.

---
 rest_framework/fields.py | 3 +++
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/rest_framework/fields.py b/rest_framework/fields.py
index 8cc8e81ec..24ddb7a44 100644
--- a/rest_framework/fields.py
+++ b/rest_framework/fields.py
@@ -57,6 +57,9 @@ def get_attribute(instance, attrs):
     Also accepts either attribute lookup on objects or dictionary lookups.
     """
     for attr in attrs:
+        if instance is None:
+            # Break out early if we get `None` at any point in a nested lookup.
+            return None
         try:
             instance = getattr(instance, attr)
         except ObjectDoesNotExist: