querysets in models with manytomany fields (Django) - django

Question

My question is associated with making querysets on models that are interconnected across many to many fields.
context - an app that a student enters and has to rate his or her teachers. the questions the app shows the student have the following logic: each student must rate some teachers. Each teacher has different categories of questions associated with them ("intelligence", "respect", "empathy",etc.) and each of these categories has some questions associated with it.
The models are:
class Items(models.Model):
item = models.TextField()
def __str__(self):
return self.item
class Categories(models.Model):
category = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
items_associated = models.ManyToManyField(Items)
def __str__(self):
return self.category
class Professors(models.Model):
professor = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
categories_assigned = models.ManyToManyField(Categories)
def __str__(self):
return self.professor
class Students(models.Model):
student_logged = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
professors_to_evaluate = models.ManyToManyField(Professors)
def __str__(self):
return self.student_logged
when a student enters the web has some associated teachers (model Students) these teachers in turn have some categories assigned (model Professors), these categories in turn have some questions associated (model Categories). I want to store in a dictionary these questions that are in the model Items. How can I do it?
I've tried to filter and __in but I can't get it.
Many thanks and thank you for the wisdom

Answer 1

I highly suggest you use the related_name attribute. I've added _x to the related names to make the query more obvious.
class Items(models.Model):
item = models.TextField()
def __str__(self):
return self.item
class Categories(models.Model):
category = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
items_associated = models.ManyToManyField(Items, related_name='category_x')
def __str__(self):
return self.category
class Professors(models.Model):
professor = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
categories_assigned = models.ManyToManyField(Categories, related_name='professor_x')
def __str__(self):
return self.professor
class Students(models.Model):
student_logged = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
professors_to_evaluate = models.ManyToManyField(Professors, related_name='student_x')
def __str__(self):
return self.student_logged
items_for_student = Items.objects.filter(category_x__professor_x__student_x=student)
But also the naming conventions you are using for the fields are a bit quirky. I've used best practices below so you can see what that would look like.
Don't have a field with the same name as the model
Models should be singular (with rare exceptions)
ManyToMany or ForeignKey relations should share the name of the model to make querying self document.
With those rules here is what the best practice looks like.
class Item(models.Model):
name = models.TextField()
def __str__(self):
return self.name
class Category(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
items = models.ManyToManyField(Item, related_name='categories')
def __str__(self):
return self.name
class Professor(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
categories = models.ManyToManyField(Category, related_name='professors')
def __str__(self):
return self.name
class Student(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=50,null=True)
professors = models.ManyToManyField(Professor, related_names='students')
def __str__(self):
return self.name
And with that structure the query would look like:
items = Item.objects.filter(categories__professors__students=student)
Also note that the above query will be very expensive to run on a database as it would evaluate to 3 joins.