title: How to modify Django Rest Framework incoming request?
body: <p>I am building a web app using Django that is pretty much only serving as the API server. I have a single-page application that connects to it as well as an Android client. I have a need to modify some of the incoming POST requests that are coming through.</p>
  
  <p>My two use cases:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>If during the registration process the user does not select an avatar image to upload (which is a simple TextField that is the URL to the image), I should be able to insert the default avatar URL. So something like <code>if request.data["avatar"] is None: &lt;use default&gt;</code></li>
  <li>The incoming "timestamp" requests from the Android client are all unix timestamps. I would like to convert this to Django's datetime on the fly - so, current request comes in with <code>date_time = 1473387225</code>, I'd like to convert that to a DateTime object.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Now, I'm already doing something similar for certain POST parameters. The way I do it right now is in the <code>post()</code> function of my generic <code>ListCreateApiView</code> I would directly modify the request object and then call the <code>self.create()</code> with that new request object. Is this the right way, or is there a much better way to do it?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>