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.
Related
I have an Article model that allows admins to publish articles. Each article is assigned to a user that is creating this article.
I want to make sure that all articles will stay untouched even if I delete the author of this particular article. I chose on_delete=models.DO_NOTHING to be sure that nothing except user account will be removed but I am not quite sure that is the most effective way.
class Article(models.Model):
id = models.AutoField(primary_key=True)
author = models.ForeignKey(User, blank=True, null=True, on_delete=models.DO_NOTHING)
title = models.CharField('Title', max_length=70, help_text='max 70 characters')
body = models.TextField('Description')
Question
Should I use another option to use or DO_NOTHING is good enough. Obviously the most important to me is that author's name will be visible in the article after deletion and the article itself cannot be removed.
Best I can say is:
add another field called author_name.
now set the on_delete of your author to models.SET_NULL.
Add a custom save method to add the name of your user to author_name.
Add a property to your model named author_full_name
in this property check if author is not null return user name and last name.
if author is None return author_name.
This way when the article is saved user full name is saved on author_name. and if user is deleted you can use the author_name.
but watch out for the custom save method it might add some issues if you don't check the user and it's deletion.
Edit: Another solution
If you have a custom user model you can a field to your users called is_deleted.
After your users delete their accounts just set this field to True and have the logic in your app to excludes deleted accounts.
this way your users won't be accessible to anyone but you can use them for the articles and foreign keys. (remember to tell your users that account deletion works this way or set a task to remove accounts after a while and set the field that I said above.)
Basically the database table creates record in certain table and stores user info as I can see you are linking article model with user based on User model.
There can be two cases like if you want the article to remain in database even if you delete the author you will get article when the article gets displayed somewhere.
If you do Cascade delete it deletes article record when associated author gets delete.
If you do models.Protect you wont get access to delete article when you user is deleted.
coming to your very models.Do nothings is a bad idea since this would create integrity issues in your database (referencing an object that actually doesn't exist). SQL equivalent: NO ACTION
find more here.
You just need to use CASCADE as below:
on_delete=models.CASCADE
I have these models in my code
class Address(models.Model):
street = models.CharField(max_length=50)
city = models.CharField(max_length=10)
class User(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=20)
age = models.IntegerField()
address = models.OneToOneField(Address, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
I understand how models.CASCADE works in Django. If I delete an Address record, the corresponding User record would be deleted, but this is not what I want. I want the Address record to be deleted if the User record gets deleted.
I know I can accomplish that by putting the OneToOneField in Address rather than User, but that doesn't make sense to me from a database schema perspective because a User has an Address. An Address doesn't have a User.
I tried searching about how to force the deletion to go in the reverse way, but apparently it's not possible from all the options that Django has (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/ref/models/fields/#django.db.models.ForeignKey.on_delete).
Does anyone know an alternative? Or the right way to construct the database schema otherwise?
Thank you!
I do not know how to specify in your obfuscation layer (orm), but at the database level you specify something like
,constraint usr2adr_fk
foreign key (adr_id)
references address(id)
on delete set null --<<< instead of delete
Just a couple FYI comments:
1:1 relationships are always questionable. There are times for security reasons or if you do significant analysis one some of the columns. But otherwise just move the column from the child table into the parent. Also, at the database level they are very difficult to actually enforce. You need bi-directional FKs and unique constraint on the column.
Age is a very poor attribute. It changes annually so you need a Update to keep it current, but not all of them change at the same time. Much better to store birth date then calculate age when it is needed. No update necessary.
According to the docs, the on_delete=models.CASCADE won't delete the related object (OneToOneField for ex.) and the signals like pre_delete and post_delete should be used to simulate the behaviour
When deleting an object in admin interface, I want to prevent removal of related objects.
class ObjectToDelete(models.Model):
timestamp = models.DateTimeField()
class RelatedObject(models.Model):
otd = models.ForeignKey('app.ObjectToDelete', null=True, blank=True)
Since the ForeignKey in RelatedObject is nullable, I should be able to set it to None instead of deleting the whole object. And this is exactly the behaviour I want to have.
I know that I can create custom delete actions for this admin interface.
And I am also aware that I could make ManyToManyField in ObjectToDelete which would also prevent removal of RelatedObject. But then I wouldn't have the one-to-many relation which I want.
Is there a simple way of achieving this?
Set the on_delete option for your foreign key. If you you want to set the value to None when the related object is deleted, use SET_NULL:
models.ForeignKey('app.ObjectToDelete', on_delete=models.SET_NULL)
These rules apply however you delete an object, whether you do it in the admin panel or working directly with the Model instance. (But it won't take effect if you work directly with the underlying database in SQL.)
I'm creating a user profile class for my new django website, and I am trying to decide how to represent a user's physical address in my models.
Is it better practice to create a new subclass of model and reference it with a OneToOne key like
class UserProfile(models.Model):
...
address = models.OneToOneField(AddressModel)
...
class AddressModel(models.Model)
street_address = models.CharField(max_length=30)
city = models.CharField(max_length=15)
....
or is it better to create a new address field like
class UserProfile(models.Model):
...
address = AddressField(location_dict)
...
class AddressField(models.Field)
# details go here
...
I generally find it useful to have separate models if the entries might be created independently. For example, if you might end up with a collection of addresses AND a collection of users, not all of which will be linked immediately, then I'd keep them separate.
However, if all addresses in your database will always and immediately be associated with a user, I'd simply add a new field to the model.
Note: some people will tell you that it's wrong and evil to have nullable database columns, and that you should therefore have a separate model if any of your addresses will ever be None. I disagree; while there are often many great reasons to avoid nullable columns, in cases like this I don't find the inconvenience of checking for a null address any more onerous than checking whether the one-to-one model entry exists.
Like Eli said, it's a question of independence. For this particular example, I would make the address a field of UserProfile, but only if you expect to have one address per user. If each user might have multiple addresses (a home address and a vacation address, for example), then I would recommend setting up a model using ForeignKey, which models a Many-To-One relationship.
class UserProfile(models.Model):
...
class AddressModel(models.Model)
user = models.ForeignKey(UserProfile)
street_address = models.CharField(max_length=30)
city = models.CharField(max_length=15)
location = models.CharField(max_length=15) #"Home," "work," "vacation," etc.
Then many AddressModel objects can be created and associated with each UserProfile.
To answer your question, I'd say in general it's probably better to separate out the address as mentioned by other users.
I think the more you learn about database normalization the easier this question is to answer.
This article, Using MySQL, Normalisation, should help you figure out the basics of the "forms" of normalization. BTW, even though it's titled MySQL, it's really very generic for relational databases.
While you don't always need to go through all the normal-forms for all projects, learning about it really helps.
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.