I just want to know about usage of _creation_counter in Field class? and why it is there?

[matrosdzmehedi]

class Field:
_creation_counter = 0

default_error_messages = {
    'required': _('This field is required.'),
    'null': _('This field may not be null.')
}
default_validators = []
default_empty_html = empty
initial = None

def __init__(self, *, read_only=False, write_only=False,
             required=None, default=empty, initial=empty, source=None,
             label=None, help_text=None, style=None,
             error_messages=None, validators=None, allow_null=False):
    self._creation_counter = Field._creation_counter
    Field._creation_counter += 1

[tomchristie]

It was originally there as it was required in order to track the ordering on serializer fields. Presumably no longer required and can be removed?

[matrosdzmehedi]

Is this for ordering or just counting fields that has been created?

[tomchristie]

It was for ordering.

[TGoddessana]

https://github.com/encode/django-rest-framework/blob/b25028ac8f46984459f9d9e28069b797986ae476/rest_framework/serializers.py#L288C9-L288C58

That private field seems to be used here; the entire test passes even without it(the fields.sort(key=lambda x: x[1]._creation_counter) line)

[tomchristie]

Thanks @TGoddessana okay good to know it's still used. It's possible(?) that it's redundant since Python switched to ordered dictionaries, but given that it's in use there perhaps let's just leave it and not introduce unnecessary risk?