Django, general version of prefetch_related()? - django

Question

Of course, I don't mean to do what prefetch_related does already.
I'd like to mimic what it does.
What I'd like to do is the following.
I have a list of MyModel instances.
A user can either follows or doesn't follow each instance.
my_models = MyModel.objects.filter(**kwargs)
for my_model in my_models:
my_model.is_following = Follow.objects.filter(user=user, target_id=my_model.id, target_content_type=MY_MODEL_CTYPE)
Here I have n+1 query problem, and I think I can borrow what prefetch_related does here. Description of prefetch_related says, it performs the query for all objects and when the related attribute is required, it gets from the pre-performed queryset.
That's exactly what I'm after, perform query for is_following for all objects that I'm interested in. and use the query instead of N individual query.
One additional aspect is that, I'd like to attach queryset rather than attach the actual value, so that I can defer evaluation until pagination.
If that's too ambiguous statement, I'd like to give the my_models queryset that has is_following information attached, to another function (DRF serializer for instance).
How does prefetch_related accomplish something like above?

Answer 1

A solution where you can get only the is_following bit is possible with a subquery via .extra.
class MyModelQuerySet(models.QuerySet):
def annotate_is_follwing(self, user):
return self.extra(
select = {'is_following': 'EXISTS( \
SELECT `id` FROM `follow` \
WHERE `follow`.`target_id` = `mymodel`.id \
AND `follow`.`user_id` = %s)' % user.id
}
)
class MyModel(models.Model):
objects = MyModelQuerySet.as_manager()
usage:
my_models = MyModel.objects.filter(**kwargs).annotate_is_follwing(request.user)
Now another solution where you can get a whole list of following objects.
Because you have a GFK in the Follow class you need to manually create a reverse relation via GenericRelation. Something like:
class MyModelQuerySet(models.QuerySet):
def with_user_following(self, user):
return self.prefetch_related(
Prefetch(
'following',
queryset=Follow.objects.filter(user=user) \
.select_related('user'),
to_attr='following_user'
)
)
class MyModel(models.Model):
following = GenericRelation(Follow,
content_type_field='target_content_type',
object_id_field='target_id'
related_query_name='mymodels'
)
objects = MyModelQuerySet.as_manager()
def get_first_following_object(self):
if hasattr(self, 'following_user') and len(self.following_user) > 0:
return self.following_user[0]
return None
usage:
my_models = MyModel.objects.filter(**kwargs).with_user_following(request.user)
Now you have access to following_user attribute - a list with all follow objects per mymodel, or you can use a method like get_first_following_object.

Answer 2

Not sure if this is the best approach, and I doubt this is what prefetch_related does because I'm joining here.
I found there's way to select extra columns in your query.
extra_select = """
EXISTS(SELECT * FROM follow_follow
WHERE follow_follow.target_object_id = myapp_mymodel.id AND
follow_follow.target_content_type_id = %s AND
follow_follow.user_id = %s)
"""
qs = self.extra(
select={'is_following': extra_select},
select_params=[CONTENT_TYPE_ID, user.id]
)
So you can do this with join.
prefetch_related way of doing it would be separate queryset and look it up in queryset for the attribute.