how travel between models having same foreign key sql - django

how can I travel dynamically between modals which have same foreign key ?
say i have witers and their posts and their details tables
post and detail table have a fk to writer now my question is can i travel from post to fk writer and then from fk writer to detail table dynamically
{{post.writer.detail}
is there something of this sort which can be implemented in html

One way to go about this is to add a property method to model class and access it on your template.
For ex:
class Writer(models.Model):
# some properties
#property
def get_detail(self):
# if detail objects does not exist it throws an error
return Detail.objects.get(writer__id=self.id)
class Detail(models.Model):
writer = models.ForeignKey(Writer,...)
# some properties
class Post(models.Model):
writer = models.ForeignKey(Writer,...)
# some properties
in your template {{post.writer.get_detail}}
The second method : If your FK is unique in detail table , you can also use reverse lookup on your template like this {{post.writer.detail_set.0}}
In case of FK is unique, consider using OneToOneField and you can access detail {{post.writer.detail}}

Related

Choose a specific manager for a related field for a model

I am in a situation where I need to use a custom manager for a related field which is different from the base_manager for the related fields. Let's say that I have a model Item which is in one to many relation with another model Purchase. Now, Item has 2 managers:
objects = ItemManager() #which by default excludes the out_of_stock=True items
complete = CompleteItemManager() #which gives all the items.
For all the other models related to Item, ItemManager is the default one. But in Purchase, I would want to use the CompleteItemManager for the related Item.
So let's say there was once a purchase for an item which is now has out_of_stock=True and we just have the id of that purchase say old_purchase_id, now if try to run the below query:
purchase = Purchase.objects.filter(id=old_purchase_id) # gives error
It would give an error like "Item matching query does not exist" as the manager being used for the related items is ItemManager which excludes such out of stock items.
What can be done in that case? Ideally I would want something to override the manager to be used for a given related field per model, so that even if all other models use ItemManager to resolve item fields, the Purchase Model still uses the CompleteItemManager for its relations with Item.
When accessing a reverse relation you can specify a custom manager to use by calling the related_name and passing the custom manager by name
purchase.item_set.all() # Uses ItemManager
purchase.item_set(manager='complete').all() # Uses CompleteItemManager
Here's how I did it.
I made a CustomForwardManyToOneDescriptor which would just pick the manager named complete for the related model. And used that descriptor in a CustomForeignKey as the forward_related_accessor_class.
class CustomForwardManyToOneDescriptor(ForwardManyToOneDescriptor):
def get_queryset(self, **hints):
related_model = self.field.remote_field.model
return related_model.complete.db_manager(hints=hints).all()
class CustomForeignKey(models.ForeignKey):
forward_related_accessor_class = CustomForwardManyToOneDescriptor
Now using the CustomForeignKey instead of ForeignKey to create OneToMany relation with a model would make that model use the complete manager for the foreign key field no matter what the default related manager is.

Linking Foreign key between tables in django models

I am just starting out with Django and so please help me out with my doubt. Currently, I have three tables Topic, Webpage, and AccessRecord. In the third table AccessRecord, I have used a ForeignKey with the second table Webpage. But Webpage table has three attributes topic, name, and URL ..so my doubt is which attribute of these three will be treated as a Foreign key to AccessRecord table.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
class Topic(models.Model):
top_name = models.CharField(max_length=264,unique = True)
def __str__(self):
return(self.top_name)
class Webpage(models.Model):
topic = models.ForeignKey(Topic,on_delete=models.CASCADE)
name = models.CharField(max_length=264,unique=True)
url = models.URLField(unique=True)
def __str__(self):
return self.name
class AccessRecord(models.Model):
name = models.ForeignKey(Webpage,on_delete=models.CASCADE)
date = models.DateField()
def __str__(self):
return str(self.date)
Actually, the ForeignKey relationship is from AccessRecord to Webpage object, that only resides in AccessRecord. There is no direct relation between a Webpage to a AccessRecord object. Instead, django provides a reverse relationship where you can access queryset of AccessRecord from a Webpage object. Like this:
webpage = Webpage.objects.first() # an object
records = webpage.accessrecord_set.all() # a queryset
If you iterate through records variable given above, you shall get AccessRecord object. Like this:
for record in records:
print(record) # an AccessRecord object
Truth is the foreign key relationship goes this way
Topic -(1------many)->webpage --(1------------many)-> Accessrecord
In this situation, Accessrecord is also linked to Topic through webpage.
Django will also automatically create a primary key for you.
I also notice something intriguing while playing about with Django ORM.
Note that what you set on the def str: method is what the foreign key field will be filled with.
i.e.
your model webpage returns self.name, the field name from inheriting model Accsessrecord will have options from the self.name.
It cant be filled manually, this way Django maintains data integrity.
You can play around it on your admin page as well.
Hopelly this also helps

django is there a way to annotate nested object?

I have the following situation. I have three models, Post, User and Friends.
class User(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
class Friend(models.Model):
user1 = models.ForeignKey(User,related_name='my_friends1')
user2 = models.ForeignKey(User,related_name='my_friends2')
class Post(models.Model):
subject = models.CharField(max_length=100)
user = models.ForeignKey(User)
Every time I bring users, I want to bring the number of his friends:
User.objects.filter(name__startswith='Joe').annotate(fc=Count('my_friends1'))
This works fine.
However, I want to make this work when I bring the users as nested objects of Post. I'm using there select_related to minimized DB calls, so I want to do something like:
Post.objects.filter(subject='sport').select_related('user').annotate(user__fc=Count('user__my_friends1'))
However, this creates field user__fc under post, and not field fc under post.user.
Is there a way to achieve this functionality?
You can make use of Prefetch class:
from django.db.models import Count, Prefetch
posts = Post.objects.all().prefetch_related(Prefetch('user', User.objects.annotate(fc=Count('my_friends1'))))
for post in posts:
print(post.subject)
print(post.user.fc)
NB : this does two database queries (Django does the join between Post and User in this case) :
'SELECT "myapp_post"."id", "myapp_post"."subject", "myapp_post"."user_id" FROM "myapp_post"
'SELECT "myapp_user"."id", "myapp_user"."password", "myapp_user"."last_login", "myapp_user"."is_superuser", "myapp_user"."username", "myapp_user"."first_name", "myapp_user"."last_name", "myapp_user"."email", "myapp_user"."is_staff", "myapp_user"."is_active", "myapp_user"."date_joined", COUNT("myapp_friend"."id") AS "fc" FROM "myapp_user" LEFT OUTER JOIN "myapp_friend" ON ("myapp_user"."id" = "myapp_friend"."user1_id") WHERE "myapp_user"."id" IN (3, 4) GROUP BY "myapp_user"."id", "myapp_user"."password", "myapp_user"."last_login", "myapp_user"."is_superuser", "myapp_user"."username", "myapp_user"."first_name", "myapp_user"."last_name", "myapp_user"."email", "myapp_user"."is_staff", "myapp_user"."is_active", "myapp_user"."date_joined"
You can define a custom manger for your models, as described here and then override its get_queryset() method to add the custom column to your model upon query.
In order to use this manager for a reverse relation, you should set the base manager as described in the docs.
Another approach would be something like this, which you specify the manager of the related model with a hard-coded attribute.

Django. Many-To-Many Field for form, but not for model

I have DB that should have one field with type Many-To-Many, but it is not and I can't change this.
For example I have a list of students and a list of subjects. Subject should be many-to-many field in students table, but as i said it is not. Students table doesn't have this field at all. But there is still another table students-subjects that contains subject_id-student_id items.
How can I embed in student form some kind of subject field that could change students-subjects data when I save a student in DB? The problem is that I can't change the DB structure so need to make it only with help of Django.
There is no such thing as a 'Many-to-many field' for a database-table like you might know it of foreign keys. In database representation many-to-many relationships are realized by using an extra table that links the primary keys (usually the ids) of the records you want to set in relation. In your case that is the table students-subjects. Django uses this table when you define a many-to-many relationship in the model. You do not have to change your database structure at all, it will be working perfectly as it is now.
See the documentation: ManyToManyField
You'll have to set the db_table option with the name of your intermediary table (i.e. students-subjects). Then everything should work fine.
EDIT:
Considering your comment, the problem is that Django expects a certain naming convention (i.e. MODELNAME_id) which isn't provided by your table. Since you say that you cannot change the table itself, you have to try something else.
You have to create an extra Model for your intermediary table (students-subjects) and define the field 'students' as a foreign key to the students model and the field 'subjects' as a foreign key to the subjects model. Then for the many-to-many field you specifiy the option 'through' with the name of your intermediary table. Set the options 'db_column' to let Django know which names you'd like to use for the databse columns. 'db_table' in the meta class is needed to specify your database table name.
You get something like:
class StudentsSubjects(models.Model):
student = models.ForeignKey(Student, db_column='student')
subject = models.ForeignKey(Subject, db_column='subject')
class Meta:
db_table = 'students-subjects'
class Student(models.Model):
...
subjects = models.ManyToManyField(Subject, through='StudentsSubjects')
...
class Subject(models.Model):
...
I hope that will help you.
For more detail see: Extra fields on many-to-many relationship.

Creation of dynamic model fields in django

This is a problem concerning django.
I have a model say "Automobiles". This will have some basic fields like "Color","Vehicle Owner Name", "Vehicle Cost".
I want to provide a form where the user can add extra fields depending on the automobile that he is adding. For example, if the user is adding a "Car", he will extra fields in the form, dynamically at run time, like "Car Milage", "Cal Manufacturer".
Suppose if the user wants to add a "Truck", he will add "Load that can be carried", "Permit" etc.
How do I achieve this in django?
There are two questions here:
How to provide a form where the user can add new fields at run time?
How to add the fields to the database so that it can be retrieved/queried later?
There are a few approaches:
key/value model (easy, well supported)
JSON data in a TextField (easy, flexible, can't search/index easily)
Dynamic model definition (not so easy, many hidden problems)
It sounds like you want the last one, but I'm not sure it's the best for you. Django is very easy to change/update, if system admins want extra fields, just add them for them and use south to migrate. I don't like generic key/value database schemas, the whole point of a powerful framework like Django is that you can easily write and rewrite custom schemas without resorting to generic approaches.
If you must allow site users/administrators to directly define their data, I'm sure others will show you how to do the first two approaches above. The third approach is what you were asking for, and a bit more crazy, I'll show you how to do. I don't recommend using it in almost all cases, but sometimes it's appropriate.
Dynamic models
Once you know what to do, this is relatively straightforward. You'll need:
1 or 2 models to store the names and types of the fields
(optional) An abstract model to define common functionality for your (subclassed) dynamic models
A function to build (or rebuild) the dynamic model when needed
Code to build or update the database tables when fields are added/removed/renamed
1. Storing the model definition
This is up to you. I imagine you'll have a model CustomCarModel and CustomField to let the user/admin define and store the names and types of the fields you want. You don't have to mirror Django fields directly, you can make your own types that the user may understand better.
Use a forms.ModelForm with inline formsets to let the user build their custom class.
2. Abstract model
Again, this is straightforward, just create a base model with the common fields/methods for all your dynamic models. Make this model abstract.
3. Build a dynamic model
Define a function that takes the required information (maybe an instance of your class from #1) and produces a model class. This is a basic example:
from django.db.models.loading import cache
from django.db import models
def get_custom_car_model(car_model_definition):
""" Create a custom (dynamic) model class based on the given definition.
"""
# What's the name of your app?
_app_label = 'myapp'
# you need to come up with a unique table name
_db_table = 'dynamic_car_%d' % car_model_definition.pk
# you need to come up with a unique model name (used in model caching)
_model_name = "DynamicCar%d" % car_model_definition.pk
# Remove any exist model definition from Django's cache
try:
del cache.app_models[_app_label][_model_name.lower()]
except KeyError:
pass
# We'll build the class attributes here
attrs = {}
# Store a link to the definition for convenience
attrs['car_model_definition'] = car_model_definition
# Create the relevant meta information
class Meta:
app_label = _app_label
db_table = _db_table
managed = False
verbose_name = 'Dynamic Car %s' % car_model_definition
verbose_name_plural = 'Dynamic Cars for %s' % car_model_definition
ordering = ('my_field',)
attrs['__module__'] = 'path.to.your.apps.module'
attrs['Meta'] = Meta
# All of that was just getting the class ready, here is the magic
# Build your model by adding django database Field subclasses to the attrs dict
# What this looks like depends on how you store the users's definitions
# For now, I'll just make them all CharFields
for field in car_model_definition.fields.all():
attrs[field.name] = models.CharField(max_length=50, db_index=True)
# Create the new model class
model_class = type(_model_name, (CustomCarModelBase,), attrs)
return model_class
4. Code to update the database tables
The code above will generate a dynamic model for you, but won't create the database tables. I recommend using South for table manipulation. Here are a couple of functions, which you can connect to pre/post-save signals:
import logging
from south.db import db
from django.db import connection
def create_db_table(model_class):
""" Takes a Django model class and create a database table, if necessary.
"""
table_name = model_class._meta.db_table
if (connection.introspection.table_name_converter(table_name)
not in connection.introspection.table_names()):
fields = [(f.name, f) for f in model_class._meta.fields]
db.create_table(table_name, fields)
logging.debug("Creating table '%s'" % table_name)
def add_necessary_db_columns(model_class):
""" Creates new table or relevant columns as necessary based on the model_class.
No columns or data are renamed or removed.
XXX: May need tweaking if db_column != field.name
"""
# Create table if missing
create_db_table(model_class)
# Add field columns if missing
table_name = model_class._meta.db_table
fields = [(f.column, f) for f in model_class._meta.fields]
db_column_names = [row[0] for row in connection.introspection.get_table_description(connection.cursor(), table_name)]
for column_name, field in fields:
if column_name not in db_column_names:
logging.debug("Adding field '%s' to table '%s'" % (column_name, table_name))
db.add_column(table_name, column_name, field)
And there you have it! You can call get_custom_car_model() to deliver a django model, which you can use to do normal django queries:
CarModel = get_custom_car_model(my_definition)
CarModel.objects.all()
Problems
Your models are hidden from Django until the code creating them is run. You can however run get_custom_car_model for every instance of your definitions in the class_prepared signal for your definition model.
ForeignKeys/ManyToManyFields may not work (I haven't tried)
You will want to use Django's model cache so you don't have to run queries and create the model every time you want to use this. I've left this out above for simplicity
You can get your dynamic models into the admin, but you'll need to dynamically create the admin class as well, and register/reregister/unregister appropriately using signals.
Overview
If you're fine with the added complication and problems, enjoy! One it's running, it works exactly as expected thanks to Django and Python's flexibility. You can feed your model into Django's ModelForm to let the user edit their instances, and perform queries using the database's fields directly. If there is anything you don't understand in the above, you're probably best off not taking this approach (I've intentionally not explained what some of the concepts are for beginners). Keep it Simple!
I really don't think many people need this, but I have used it myself, where we had lots of data in the tables and really, really needed to let the users customise the columns, which changed rarely.
Database
Consider your database design once more.
You should think in terms of how those objects that you want to represent relate to each other in the real world and then try to generalize those relations as much as you can, (so instead of saying each truck has a permit, you say each vehicle has an attribute which can be either a permit, load amount or whatever).
So lets try it:
If you say you have a vehicle and each vehicle can have many user specified attributes consider the following models:
class Attribute(models.Model):
type = models.CharField()
value = models.CharField()
class Vehicle(models.Model):
attribute = models.ManyToMany(Attribute)
As noted before, this is a general idea which enables you to add as much attributes to each vehicle as you want.
If you want specific set of attributes to be available to the user you can use choices in the Attribute.type field.
ATTRIBUTE_CHOICES = (
(1, 'Permit'),
(2, 'Manufacturer'),
)
class Attribute(models.Model):
type = models.CharField(max_length=1, choices=ATTRIBUTE_CHOICES)
value = models.CharField()
Now, perhaps you would want each vehicle sort to have it's own set of available attributes. This can be done by adding yet another model and set foreign key relations from both Vehicle and Attribute models to it.
class VehicleType(models.Model):
name = models.CharField()
class Attribute(models.Model):
vehicle_type = models.ForeigngKey(VehicleType)
type = models.CharField()
value = models.CharField()
class Vehicle(models.Model):
vehicle_type = models.ForeigngKey(VehicleType)
attribute = models.ManyToMany(Attribute)
This way you have a clear picture of how each attribute relates to some vehicle.
Forms
Basically, with this database design, you would require two forms for adding objects into the database. Specifically a model form for a vehicle and a model formset for attributes. You could use jQuery to dynamically add more items on the Attribute formset.
Note
You could also separate Attribute class to AttributeType and AttributeValue so you don't have redundant attribute types stored in your database or if you want to limit the attribute choices for the user but keep the ability to add more types with Django admin site.
To be totally cool, you could use autocomplete on your form to suggest existing attribute types to the user.
Hint: learn more about database normalization.
Other solutions
As suggested in the previous answer by Stuart Marsh
On the other hand you could hard code your models for each vehicle type so that each vehicle type is represented by the subclass of the base vehicle and each subclass can have its own specific attributes but that solutions is not very flexible (if you require flexibility).
You could also keep JSON representation of additional object attributes in one database field but I am not sure this would be helpfull when querying attributes.
Here is my simple test in django shell- I just typed in and it seems work fine-
In [25]: attributes = {
"__module__": "lekhoni.models",
"name": models.CharField(max_length=100),
"address": models.CharField(max_length=100),
}
In [26]: Person = type('Person', (models.Model,), attributes)
In [27]: Person
Out[27]: class 'lekhoni.models.Person'
In [28]: p1= Person()
In [29]: p1.name= 'manir'
In [30]: p1.save()
In [31]: Person.objects.a
Person.objects.aggregate Person.objects.all Person.objects.annotate
In [32]: Person.objects.all()
Out[33]: [Person: Person object]
It seems very simple- not sure why it should not be a considered an option- Reflection is very common is other languages like C# or Java- Anyway I am very new to django things-
Are you talking about in a front end interface, or in the Django admin?
You can't create real fields on the fly like that without a lot of work under the hood. Each model and field in Django has an associated table and column in the database. To add new fields usually requires either raw sql, or migrations using South.
From a front end interface, you could create pseudo fields, and store them in a json format in a single model field.
For example, create an other_data text field in the model. Then allow users to create fields, and store them like {'userfield':'userdata','mileage':54}
But I think if you're using a finite class like vehicles, you would create a base model with the basic vehicle characteristics, and then create models that inherits from the base model for each of the vehicle types.
class base_vehicle(models.Model):
color = models.CharField()
owner_name = models.CharField()
cost = models.DecimalField()
class car(base_vehicle):
mileage = models.IntegerField(default=0)
etc