From 4fc3b1ba56239a1fb999f9aef99cdbcfbc9aa254 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: James Cleveland <jamescleveland@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:02:53 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Add timedelta encoder to the JSONEncoder class.

Whilst this commit adds *encoding* of timedeltas to a string of a floating
point value of the seconds, you must add your own serializer field for
whatever timedelta model field you are using. This is because Django doesn't
support any kind of timedelta field out-of-the-box, so you have to either
implement your own or use django-timedelta.

If this is the case and you want to serialise timedelta input, you will have
to implement your own special field to use for the timedelta, which is not
included in core as it is based on a 3rd party library. Here is an example:

    import datetime
    import timedelta
    from django import forms
    from django.core import validators
    from django.core.exceptions import ValidationError
    from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
    from rest_framework.fields import WritableField

    class TimedeltaField(WritableField):
        type_name = 'TimedeltaField'
        form_field_class = forms.FloatField

        default_error_messages = {
            'invalid': _("'%s' value must be in seconds."),
        }

        def from_native(self, value):
            if value in validators.EMPTY_VALUES:
                return None

            try:
                return datetime.timedelta(seconds=float(value))
            except (TypeError, ValueError):
                msg = self.error_messages['invalid'] % value
                raise ValidationError(msg)

Which is based on the FloatField. This field can then be used in
your serializer like this:

    from yourapp.fields import TimedeltaField

    class YourSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
        duration = TimedeltaField()
---
 rest_framework/utils/encoders.py | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/rest_framework/utils/encoders.py b/rest_framework/utils/encoders.py
index c70b24dda..7afe100a8 100644
--- a/rest_framework/utils/encoders.py
+++ b/rest_framework/utils/encoders.py
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ from rest_framework.serializers import DictWithMetadata, SortedDictWithMetadata
 
 class JSONEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
     """
-    JSONEncoder subclass that knows how to encode date/time,
+    JSONEncoder subclass that knows how to encode date/time/timedelta,
     decimal types, and generators.
     """
     def default(self, o):
@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@ class JSONEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
             if o.microsecond:
                 r = r[:12]
             return r
+        elif isinstance(o, datetime.timedelta):
+            return str(o.total_seconds())
         elif isinstance(o, decimal.Decimal):
             return str(o)
         elif hasattr(o, '__iter__'):