I am using django models and am running into issues. I have a couple of models that I am trying to load data to, one with a foreign key to another. I will use two models as an example, but the hope is that I can write the code so that it will generalize to work for models with different names and different field names. The models look as follows:
class ProgramInfo(models.Model):
program_code = models.CharField(max_length=5, primary_key=True)
...
class StudentInfo(models.Model):
...
program_code = models.ForeignKey('ProgramInfo', on_delete=models.PROTECT)
I also have a dictionary called _model_dict with the field names of StudentInfo as the keys and the values being the values I want to put in the model. When I run
_model.objects.update_or_create(**_model_dict)
It tells me
Cannot assign "'ABCD'": "StudentInfo.program_code" must be a "ProgramInfo" instance.
Even though that value exists in the ProgramInfo table.
I have no issue inserting data to models without foreign keys using this same method.
As I understand it the value for the key in _model_dict of the foreign key field should not just be the value for a single field, but an object of the model the foreign key links to.
I tried singling out the foreign key fields in order to be able to use model_get with filter and obtain the row from the target model and put that in the _model_dict but I couldn't find out how to obtain the target model given a known ForeignKey field. Because I intend the to generalize I don't want to specify the target model in specific code, but will like to obtain it from the field that I managed to conclude was the foreign key field. I have been googling around for many hours now and can't find the attribute for the target model a of ForeignKey field.
i don't know if it will be useful, but here is the code I used for trying to create a class for the foreign key:
# check for foreign keys
_model_field_objects = [f for f in _model._meta.get_fields()]
foreign_key_fields_dict = {}
for field in _model_field_objects:
if field.__class__ is ForeignKey:
foreign_key_fields_dict[field.name] = field #here i try to obtain target model of the field
print("Foreign key fields are: " + str(foreign_key_fields_dict))
sys.stdout.flush()
for row in data:
_model_dict = {key: value for key, value in zip(titles, row) if key in _model_field_names}
# adjust foreign key to their class
for key in _model_dict:
filter_arguments = {}
if key in foreign_key_fields_dict:
filter_arguments[key] = _model_dict[key]
_model_dict[key] = foreign_key_fields_dict[key].objects.filter(**filter_arguments)
# insert to table
_model.objects.update_or_create(**_model_dict)
I am probably way over complicating this. If there is a simple way Django provides for adding to a model with foreign keys given the known value for the foreign key field (and not the full object for the model it points to) I would be glad to learn of it.
Thanks in advance for any help available!
because program_code is the primarykey in the ProgramInfo model, you can set or get using the value of that field:
for example, lets say you have a ProgramInfo instance with a primarykey that its value is 'abcd', you can create a StudentInfo using that like this:
StudentInfo.objects.create(program_code_id='abcd', ..... other fields ....)
because program_code_id is what that really is stored in the StudentInfo database.
I solved it in an non-elegant way that works for me. Other answers given might be better, but I am too scared to change my code for now as it seems to be working. Here is what I did in case it can help anyone else:
Using:
from pprint import pprint
pprint(vars(myobject))
I managed to find out that the ForeignKey type object has an attribute ForeignKey.related_model. Once I had the model I could use it as follows to obtain the row in the model that is being pointed to:
field.related_model.objects.get(pk=_model_dict[key])
where field is the field in the model that I am trying to insert data into. The result from that could be put into the _model_dict dictionary containing all the other values for fields for the model I am inserting data into, so using the following worked for inserting the data:
_model.objects.update_or_create(**_model_dict)
NOTE:
The update_or_create would sometimes crash saying there was a problem with uniqueness, which I thought was the "update_or" part was suppose to resolve. In any case adding a try/except around it solved that problem for me - though I know its a hack..
Related
I have a table called user_info. I want to get names of all the users. So the table has a field called name. So in sql I do something like
SELECT distinct(name) from user_info
But I am not able to figure out how to do the same in django. Usually if I already have certain value known, then I can do something like below.
user_info.objects.filter(name='Alex')
And then get the information for that particular user.
But in this case for the given table, I want to get all the name values using django ORM just like I do in sql.
Here is my django model
class user_info(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
priority = models.CharField(max_length=1)
org = models.CharField(max_length=20)
How can I do this in django?
You can use values_list.
user_info.objects.values_list('name', flat=True).distinct()
Note, in Python classes are usually defined in InitialCaps: your model should be UserInfo.
You can use values_list() as given in Daniel's answer, which will provide you your data in a list containing the values in the field. Or you can also use, values() like this:
user_info.object.values('name')
which will return you a queryset containing a dictionary. values_list() and values() are used to select the columns in a table.
Adding on to the accepted answer, if the field is a foreign key the id values(numerical) are returned in the queryset. Hence if you are expecting other kinds of values defined in the model of which the foreign key is part then you have to modify the query like this:
`Post.objects.values_list('author__username')`
Post is a model class having author as a foreign key field which in turn has its username field:
Here, "author" field was appended with double undersocre followed by the field "name", otherwise primary key of the model will be returned in queryset. I assume this was #Carlo's doubt in accepted answer.
In my ModelForm's save() method I am accessing self.changed_data and I would like to do something like:
changes_moderated_dict.update(dict(
[(i, staff.profile.user.__dict__[i])
for i in changed_data
if i in staff.profile.user.__dict__]))
which updates changes_moderated_dict with staff.profile.user key/value pairs if the key is found in changed_data. changes_moderated_dict is basically used to store all the field changes made to this particular model inside the form (for later processing and serialization).
This works all fine as long as the staff.profile.user is not a foreign key relationship in which case the filed name has a _id suffix and would not match up with the self.changed_data field name which is the attribute name as it appears in the model (without _id).
Is there a way do resolve the foreign key attribute inside a model's __dict__ to it's actual name so that the above method still works?
I'm not sure what the goal of accessing user.__dict__ is, but if it is to check the model fields you can do something like this:
u = staff.profile.user
model_field_names = map(lambda f:f.name, u._meta.fields)
changes_moderated_dict.update(dict(
[(i, getattr(u, i, None))
for i in changed_data
if i in model_field_names]))
I'm having some trouble understanding many-to-many fields in Django.
When I create a many-to-many field, ex:
class GlobalPart (Models.model):
...
category_id=models.ManyToManyField(Category, related_name = 'globalpart')
...
and
class Category (Model.model):
...
category = models.CharField(max_length=250)
...
I notice that it created a new table called appname_globalpart_category_id in addition to the appname_globalpart table for the GlobalPart model.
What I'm wondering is, how should the field types in that table be defined. I would think that
there should be at least one foreign key there to relate the fields. But instead there is the primary key for the table, and the other fields are integers (globalpart_id and category_id).
So my question is -- is that normal? Or did I somehow define the many-to-many field incorrectly? And my next question is how would I get all the category_ids associated to a particular GlobalPart?
(1) short answer: Yes this is normal.
Long answer: ManyToMany table will need a foreign key to both Category and GlobalPart tables. Strictly speaking those two foreign keys should be sufficient. The extra pk that you see in there is just for django magic. You can really get away with only those two foreign keys in that table if you manually define the many-to-many table yourself. However if you let django do it for you (by using ManyToManyField) you get this extra pk
(2) I suggest changing your model fields category_id to categories:
class GlobalPart (Models.model):
categories=models.ManyToManyField(Category, related_name = 'globalpart')
This is because, ManyToManyFields refers well to "many" items. This field does not refer to "one" category_id, it refers to all related categories. So when naming it would be natural to name it accordingly.
As for accessing all categories you can do it by accessing the "categories" property. Say if your object instance named global_part, you can access categories like this:
categories = global_part.categories.all()
Instead of all(), you can use filter() or exclude() the same way you use it when querying models.
Here is a link to related django docs
What do you think a foreign key is? It's a field containing values that equate to IDs - usually primary keys - in the "foreign" table. If the other table has integer keys, as most Django tables do, then the foreign key field will be of type integer as well.
Additionally, Django creates constraints so that the database will enforce that the IDs do actually reference valid values in the foreign table. Depending on your database, these might or might not be displayed as part of the field definition.
Is Django or maybe POSTGRESQL losing information about primary keys and foreign keys when you create a view which relates to a view which relates to a table, which has primary and foreign keys?
I have a View-A (all 3 fields are Foreign Keys) and that view gets 2 fields from a View-B. The View-B gets its fields from a table-C. table-C has primary key and foreign key.
So when i access View-A with my django model, how do i treat those fields? I know they are foreign keys, but any kind of filter results in a empty Queryset.
if i use something like
myview = viewA.objects.using(db).all() # getting all the data
myview2= viewA.objects.using(db).all()[:5] # getting 5 objects
.
class viewA(models.Model):
class Meta:
db_table = "viewA"
x = models.ForeignKey(x, primary_key=True)
y = models.ForeignKey(y)
z = models.ForeignKey(z)
The problem is that i can not filter!
response=viewA.objects.using(db).filter(y_id=1) ERROR:= FieldError
Behind all those FK, there are integer/bigint fields.
Edit:
Since this are INNER JOINS i would like to access not only the fields from ViewA, but also from ViewB. x,y,z are from type ViewB. Maybe use select_related()?
So any clues if Django or postgres lose information about keys in views which relate to other views?
See my two comments; however, to answer your specific "query".
If you go to the docs, and see this paragraph:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/fields/#database-representation
You will note that foreign keys, by default, have the _id appended to their names. Now, there are occasions in which you need to access the column name directly and it's a good idea to be aware of the column as a "bigger picture" sort of thing, but at as far as Model API is concerned, you should, when doing something against a foreign key, use the attribute name given in the model instance.
Edit from your comment:
If you want to drill down and filter against some field in the foreignkey object, you just do y__fieldname = somevalue
Note that fieldname must be in the y object.
If you are getting back and empty queryset, this is because nothing in that column matched the value you gave it.
To test this, create a queryset directly on the "y" object and then try to do y.objects.fitler(fieldname=somevalue)
if you still get back and empty queryset, you know that value doesn't exist. Furthermore, you can look into the database and try a raw query in pgadminIII if you have that set up.
I wanted a Django model with 2 foreign keys from the same table. It's an event table which has 2 columns for employees: the 'actor' and the 'receiver'. But I get this error:
Error: One or more models did not validate: tasks.task: Intermediary
model TaskEvent has more than one foreign key to Employee, which is
ambiguous and is not permitted.
Is there a better way to model this?
I think I'm going to add a TaskEvent_to_Employee table. There will be two records in it, one for each of the two employees related to each TaskEvent. Does anyone know an easier workaround?
I haven't done this yet, but I used inspectdb to generate the models.py file from an existing DB that does exactly that - this is what inspectdb threw back, so it should work:
creator = models.ForeignKey(Users, null=True, related_name='creator')
assignee = models.ForeignKey(Users, null=True, related_name='assignee')
Hope that works for you - if it doesn't I am going to have a problem too.
I think what you're looking for is the related_name property on ForeignKeyFields. This will allow you to reference the same table, but give django special names for the relationship.
More Info:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/fields/#django.db.models.ForeignKey.related_name
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/queries/#backwards-related-objects
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/examples/many_to_one/
From the error message, it sounds like you're trying to put two foreign keys to the same object on an intermediary table used via the through argument to ManyToManyField, the documentation for which states:
When you set up the intermediary
model, you explicitly specify foreign
keys to the models that are involved
in the ManyToMany relation. This
explicit declaration defines how the
two models are related.
There are a few restrictions on the
intermediate model:
Your intermediate model must contain one - and only one - foreign key to
the target model (this would be Person
in our example). If you have more than
one foreign key, a validation error
will be raised.
Your intermediate model must contain one - and only one - foreign key to
the source model (this would be Group
in our example). If you have more than
one foreign key, a validation error
will be raised.
Using related_name was my solution:
class Sample(models.model):
...
class Mymodel(models.model):
example1 = models.ForeignKey(Sample, related_name='sample1')
example2 = models.ForeignKey(Sample, related_name='sample2')
The fact that two columns are part of one table implies that the two fields are related, therefor to reference them individually is not ideal. The ForeignKey of your model should be the primary key of the table you are referencing:
event = models.ForeignKey('event')
You would then reference the columns as such:
foo.event.actor
foo.event.receiver
If you wish you could also change the way your class/model references the foreign attributes with properties. In your class you would do the following:
#property
def actor(self):
return self.event.actor
#property
def receiver(self):
return self.event.receiver
This would allow you to then call foo.actor and foo.receiver but I believe the longer, foo.event.actor would be more pythonic