I'm trying to build an online forum. Right now, my forum model has several attributes and one of it is "owner", which is a ForeignKey to the user that created this forum. It also has another attribute "passcode" which makes sure that whenever an owner creates a forum, he/she has to type a passcode so that only others with the right passcode can join the forum. Now, I am trying to implement a new function such that users can choose to join existing forums; however, I am stuck.
1) My first issue is that in order to create a custom permission, I first need another model attribute that contains a list of the permissioned users. I was thinking of having a model attribute as an empty list, permissioned_users = [], so that whenever a user requests to join a forum and has the right passcode, his/her username will be appended to the list and then in my views.py I can use #user_passes_test to check if the request.user.username is in the list. However, i'm not sure if "students = []" will work such that i can do "anyparticularinstance".students.append("his name") will work.
2) How do i create a join forum function? I have fully implemented a create forum function but how do I allow users to join an existing forum? Thank you!
One Way you can achieve the permissions is by defining a Boolean field in your model, for example:
class Forum(AbstractBaseUser):
username=models.CharField(max_length=20,unique=True)
name = models.CharField(max_length=20)
email = models.EmailField(max_length=254,null=True,blank=True)
is_active = models.BooleanField(default=True)
is_admin = models.BooleanField(default=False)
is_staff = models.BooleanField(default=False)
By extending the AbstractBaseUser in Django you can define custom permissions for users.Either from the default Admin provided by Django or may be your own custom admin, you can add or remove permissions to a particular user. For more information you can see the following link Django AbstractBaseUser
You can achieve your objective by using textfield, and then appending at the end of the textfield everytime you update the field.
Model:
permissioned_users = models.TextField(blank=True, null=True)
View:
foo = Forum.objects.get(id=id)
temp = foo.permissioned_users
temp = temp+" username"
foo.permissioned_users = temp
foo.save()
Obviously you have to do some more work, ex. when you want to check which user is given permission, you split the string using whitespace hence str.split(), then you can easily iterate through it and make your checks.
I'm quite familiar with Django, but I recently noticed there exists an on_delete=models.CASCADE option with the models. I have searched for the documentation for the same, but I couldn't find anything more than:
Changed in Django 1.9:
on_delete can now be used as the second positional argument (previously it was typically only passed as a keyword argument). It will be a required argument in Django 2.0.
An example case of usage is:
from django.db import models
class Car(models.Model):
manufacturer = models.ForeignKey(
'Manufacturer',
on_delete=models.CASCADE,
)
# ...
class Manufacturer(models.Model):
# ...
pass
What does on_delete do? (I guess the actions to be done if the model is deleted.)
What does models.CASCADE do? (any hints in documentation)
What other options are available (if my guess is correct)?
Where does the documentation for this reside?
This is the behaviour to adopt when the referenced object is deleted. It is not specific to Django; this is an SQL standard. Although Django has its own implementation on top of SQL. (1)
There are seven possible actions to take when such event occurs:
CASCADE: When the referenced object is deleted, also delete the objects that have references to it (when you remove a blog post for instance, you might want to delete comments as well). SQL equivalent: CASCADE.
PROTECT: Forbid the deletion of the referenced object. To delete it you will have to delete all objects that reference it manually. SQL equivalent: RESTRICT.
RESTRICT: (introduced in Django 3.1) Similar behavior as PROTECT that matches SQL's RESTRICT more accurately. (See django documentation example)
SET_NULL: Set the reference to NULL (requires the field to be nullable). For instance, when you delete a User, you might want to keep the comments he posted on blog posts, but say it was posted by an anonymous (or deleted) user. SQL equivalent: SET NULL.
SET_DEFAULT: Set the default value. SQL equivalent: SET DEFAULT.
SET(...): Set a given value. This one is not part of the SQL standard and is entirely handled by Django.
DO_NOTHING: Probably a very bad idea since this would create integrity issues in your database (referencing an object that actually doesn't exist). SQL equivalent: NO ACTION. (2)
Source: Django documentation
See also the documentation of PostgreSQL for instance.
In most cases, CASCADE is the expected behaviour, but for every ForeignKey, you should always ask yourself what is the expected behaviour in this situation. PROTECT and SET_NULL are often useful. Setting CASCADE where it should not, can potentially delete all of your database in cascade, by simply deleting a single user.
Additional note to clarify cascade direction
It's funny to notice that the direction of the CASCADE action is not clear to many people. Actually, it's funny to notice that only the CASCADE action is not clear. I understand the cascade behavior might be confusing, however you must think that it is the same direction as any other action. Thus, if you feel that CASCADE direction is not clear to you, it actually means that on_delete behavior is not clear to you.
In your database, a foreign key is basically represented by an integer field which value is the primary key of the foreign object. Let's say you have an entry comment_A, which has a foreign key to an entry article_B. If you delete the entry comment_A, everything is fine. article_B used to live without comment_A and don't bother if it's deleted. However, if you delete article_B, then comment_A panics! It never lived without article_B and needs it, it's part of its attributes (article=article_B, but what is article_B???). This is where on_delete steps in, to determine how to resolve this integrity error, either by saying:
"No! Please! Don't! I can't live without you!" (which is said PROTECT or RESTRICT in Django/SQL)
"All right, if I'm not yours, then I'm nobody's" (which is said SET_NULL)
"Good bye world, I can't live without article_B" and commit suicide (this is the CASCADE behavior).
"It's OK, I've got spare lover, I'll reference article_C from now" (SET_DEFAULT, or even SET(...)).
"I can't face reality, I'll keep calling your name even if that's the only thing left to me!" (DO_NOTHING)
I hope it makes cascade direction clearer. :)
Footnotes
(1) Django has its own implementation on top of SQL. And, as mentioned by #JoeMjr2 in the comments below, Django will not create the SQL constraints. If you want the constraints to be ensured by your database (for instance, if your database is used by another application, or if you hang in the database console from time to time), you might want to set the related constraints manually yourself. There is an open ticket to add support for database-level on delete constraints in Django.
(2) Actually, there is one case where DO_NOTHING can be useful: If you want to skip Django's implementation and implement the constraint yourself at the database-level.
The on_delete method is used to tell Django what to do with model instances that depend on the model instance you delete. (e.g. a ForeignKey relationship). The on_delete=models.CASCADE tells Django to cascade the deleting effect i.e. continue deleting the dependent models as well.
Here's a more concrete example. Assume you have an Author model that is a ForeignKey in a Book model. Now, if you delete an instance of the Author model, Django would not know what to do with instances of the Book model that depend on that instance of Author model. The on_delete method tells Django what to do in that case. Setting on_delete=models.CASCADE will instruct Django to cascade the deleting effect i.e. delete all the Book model instances that depend on the Author model instance you deleted.
Note: on_delete will become a required argument in Django 2.0. In older versions it defaults to CASCADE.
Here's the entire official documentation.
FYI, the on_delete parameter in models is backwards from what it sounds like. You put on_delete on a foreign key (FK) on a model to tell Django what to do if the FK entry that you are pointing to on your record is deleted. The options our shop have used the most are PROTECT, CASCADE, and SET_NULL. Here are the basic rules I have figured out:
Use PROTECT when your FK is pointing to a look-up table that really shouldn't be changing and that certainly should not cause your table to change. If anyone tries to delete an entry on that look-up table, PROTECT prevents them from deleting it if it is tied to any records. It also prevents Django from deleting your record just because it deleted an entry on a look-up table. This last part is critical. If someone were to delete the gender "Female" from my Gender table, I CERTAINLY would NOT want that to instantly delete any and all people I had in my Person table who had that gender.
Use CASCADE when your FK is pointing to a "parent" record. So, if a Person can have many PersonEthnicity entries (he/she can be American Indian, Black, and White), and that Person is deleted, I really would want any "child" PersonEthnicity entries to be deleted. They are irrelevant without the Person.
Use SET_NULL when you do want people to be allowed to delete an entry on a look-up table, but you still want to preserve your record. For example, if a Person can have a HighSchool, but it doesn't really matter to me if that high-school goes away on my look-up table, I would say on_delete=SET_NULL. This would leave my Person record out there; it just would just set the high-school FK on my Person to null. Obviously, you will have to allow null=True on that FK.
Here is an example of a model that does all three things:
class PurchPurchaseAccount(models.Model):
id = models.AutoField(primary_key=True)
purchase = models.ForeignKey(PurchPurchase, null=True, db_column='purchase', blank=True, on_delete=models.CASCADE) # If "parent" rec gone, delete "child" rec!!!
paid_from_acct = models.ForeignKey(PurchPaidFromAcct, null=True, db_column='paid_from_acct', blank=True, on_delete=models.PROTECT) # Disallow lookup deletion & do not delete this rec.
_updated = models.DateTimeField()
_updatedby = models.ForeignKey(Person, null=True, db_column='_updatedby', blank=True, related_name='acctupdated_by', on_delete=models.SET_NULL) # Person records shouldn't be deleted, but if they are, preserve this PurchPurchaseAccount entry, and just set this person to null.
def __unicode__(self):
return str(self.paid_from_acct.display)
class Meta:
db_table = u'purch_purchase_account'
As a last tidbit, did you know that if you don't specify on_delete (or didn't), the default behavior is CASCADE? This means that if someone deleted a gender entry on your Gender table, any Person records with that gender were also deleted!
I would say, "If in doubt, set on_delete=models.PROTECT." Then go test your application. You will quickly figure out which FKs should be labeled the other values without endangering any of your data.
Also, it is worth noting that on_delete=CASCADE is actually not added to any of your migrations, if that is the behavior you are selecting. I guess this is because it is the default, so putting on_delete=CASCADE is the same thing as putting nothing.
As mentioned earlier, CASCADE will delete the record that has a foreign key and references another object that was deleted. So for example if you have a real estate website and have a Property that references a City
class City(models.Model):
# define model fields for a city
class Property(models.Model):
city = models.ForeignKey(City, on_delete = models.CASCADE)
# define model fields for a property
and now when the City is deleted from the database, all associated Properties (eg. real estate located in that city) will also be deleted from the database
Now I also want to mention the merit of other options, such as SET_NULL or SET_DEFAULT or even DO_NOTHING. Basically, from the administration perspective, you want to "delete" those records. But you don't really want them to disappear. For many reasons. Someone might have deleted it accidentally, or for auditing and monitoring. And plain reporting. So it can be a way to "disconnect" the property from a City. Again, it will depend on how your application is written.
For example, some applications have a field "deleted" which is 0 or 1. And all their searches and list views etc, anything that can appear in reports or anywhere the user can access it from the front end, exclude anything that is deleted == 1. However, if you create a custom report or a custom query to pull down a list of records that were deleted and even more so to see when it was last modified (another field) and by whom (i.e. who deleted it and when)..that is very advantageous from the executive standpoint.
And don't forget that you can revert accidental deletions as simple as deleted = 0 for those records.
My point is, if there is a functionality, there is always a reason behind it. Not always a good reason. But a reason. And often a good one too.
Using CASCADE means actually telling Django to delete the referenced record.
In the poll app example below: When a 'Question' gets deleted it will also delete the Choices this Question has.
e.g Question: How did you hear about us?
(Choices: 1. Friends 2. TV Ad 3. Search Engine 4. Email Promotion)
When you delete this question, it will also delete all these four choices from the table.
Note that which direction it flows.
You don't have to put on_delete=models.CASCADE in Question Model put it in the Choice.
from django.db import models
class Question(models.Model):
question_text = models.CharField(max_length=200)
pub_date = models.dateTimeField('date_published')
class Choice(models.Model):
question = models.ForeignKey(Question, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
choice_text = models.CharField(max_legth=200)
votes = models.IntegerField(default=0)
simply put, on_delete is an instruction to specify what modifications will be made to the object in case the foreign object is deleted:
CASCADE: will remove the child object when the foreign object is deleted
SET_NULL: will set the child object foreign key to null
SET_DEFAULT: will set the child object to the default data given while creating the model
RESTRICT: raises a RestrictedError under certain conditions.
PROTECT: prevents the foreign object from being deleted so long there are child objects inheriting from it
additional links:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.0/ref/models/fields/#foreignkey
Here is answer for your question that says: why we use on_delete?
When an object referenced by a ForeignKey is deleted, Django by default emulates the behavior of the SQL constraint ON DELETE CASCADE and also deletes the object containing the ForeignKey. This behavior can be overridden by specifying the on_delete argument. For example, if you have a nullable ForeignKey and you want it to be set null when the referenced object is deleted:
user = models.ForeignKey(User, blank=True, null=True, on_delete=models.SET_NULL)
The possible values for on_delete are found in django.db.models:
CASCADE: Cascade deletes; the default.
PROTECT: Prevent deletion of the referenced object by raising ProtectedError, a subclass of django.db.IntegrityError.
SET_NULL: Set the ForeignKey null; this is only possible if null is True.
SET_DEFAULT: Set the ForeignKey to its default value; a default for the ForeignKey must be set.
Let's say you have two models, one named Person and another one named Companies, and that, by definition, one person can create more than one company.
Considering a company can have one and only one person, we want that when a person is deleted that all the companies associated with that person also be deleted.
So, we start by creating a Person model, like this
class Person(models.Model):
id = models.IntegerField(primary_key=True)
name = models.CharField(max_length=20)
def __str__(self):
return self.id+self.name
Then, the Companies model can look like this
class Companies(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=20)
description=models.CharField(max_length=10)
person= models.ForeignKey(Person,related_name='persons',on_delete=models.CASCADE)
Notice the usage of on_delete=models.CASCADE in the model Companies. That is to delete all companies when the person that owns it (instance of class Person) is deleted.
Reorient your mental model of the functionality of "CASCADE" by thinking of adding a FK to an already existing cascade (i.e. a waterfall). The source of this waterfall is a primary key (PK). Deletes flow down.
So if you define a FK's on_delete as "CASCADE," you're adding this FK's record to a cascade of deletes originating from the PK. The FK's record may participate in this cascade or not ("SET_NULL"). In fact, a record with a FK may even prevent the flow of the deletes! Build a dam with "PROTECT."
Deletes all child fields in the database when parent object is deleted then we use on_delete as so:
class user(models.Model):
commodities = models.ForeignKey(commodity, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
CASCADE will also delete the corresponding field connected with it.
In (a toy version of) my project, there are Owners who own any number of Objects. My models.py file looks like
class Owner(models.Model)
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
date_of_birth = models.DateField()
class Object(models.Model)
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
price = models.models.DecimalField(max_digits=9, decimal_places=2)
owner = models.ForeignKey(Owner)
My question relates to the change page for an Owner on the admin site, e.g.
http://mysite.com/admin/myapp/owner/1/.
Now I know that if I register Object as a TabularInline or a StackedInline, then I get an editable list of the Objects this Owner owns. However, in the real version of my project, an Object has something like 25 fields, not 2, and so neither of those options is really desirable aesthetically.
What I would really like instead is to essentially have a change-list of all the Objects an Owner owns appear on the Owner's change-page. (That way I get a nice compact listing of all the Owner's Objects, and if I need to edit the details of one, I can click on its link and edit it in its own page.) Basically I want the contents of
http://mysite.com/admin/myapp/object/?owner__id__exact=1
to appear within
http://mysite.com/admin/myapp/owner/1/.
Is there a way to do this?
PS: I'm using Django 1.4 and Python 2.7.
You can define what form class and/or fields to use in each InlineModelAdmin using these attributes, and limit the amount of input fields per object that way.
I'm a bit confused about how the OneToOneField works when deletion comes into play. The only quasi-authoritative info I can find is from this thread on django-developers:
I don't know if you discovered this yet, but the delete is working in
one direction, but not in the direction you're expecting it to. For
instance, using the models you posted in another message:
class Place(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length = 100)
class Restaurant(models.Model):
place = models.OneToOneField(Place, primary_key=True)
If you
create a Place and a Restaurant that is linked to it, deleting the
Restaurant will not delete the Place (this is the problem you're
reporting here), but deleting the Place will delete the Restaurant.
I have the following model:
class Person(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
# ... etc ...
user = models.OneToOneField(User, related_name="person", null=True, blank=True)
It's set up this way so I can easily access person from a User instance using user.person.
However, when I try to delete a User record in admin, naturally it's cascading backwards to my Person model, just as the thread discussed, showing something along the lines of:
Are you sure you want to delete the user "JordanReiter2"? All of the following related items will be deleted:
User: JordanReiter
Person: JordanReiter
Submission: Title1
Submission: Title2
Needless to say I do not want to delete the Person record or any of its descendants!
I guess I understand the logic: because there is a value in the OneToOne field in the Person record, deleting the User record would create a bad reference in the user_id column in the database.
Normally, the solution would be to switch where the OneToOne field is located. Of course, that's not realistically possible since the User object is pretty much set by django.contrib.auth.
Is there any way to prevent a deletion cascade while still having a straightforward way to access person from user? Is the only way to do it creating a User model that extends the django.contrib version?
Update
I changed the model names so hopefully now it's a little clearer. Basically, there a thousands of Person records. Not every person has a login, but if they do, they have one and only one login.
Turns out that both ForeignKey and OneToOneField have an attribute on_delete that you can set to models.SET_NULL, like so:
class Person(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
# ... etc ...
user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.SET_NULL, related_name="person", null=True, blank=True)
This results in the behavior I was wanting: the User model is deleted without touching the Person record. I overlooked it because it's not explicitly listed under OneToOneField, it simply says
Additionally, OneToOneField accepts all of the extra arguments accepted by ForeignKey...
Easy to miss.
For this use case you should use a simple ForeignKey. OneToOne means there is one, and can only be one and it can only be associated with this one specific other object. The deletion occurs because it doesn’t make sense to have a null onetoone field, it CAN'T be associated with anything else.