How to make a query on related_name field? - django

Question

I have to models connected by a ForeignKey
class User(AbstractUser):
...
and
class PrivateMessage(models.Model):
user_from = models.ForeignKey(
User,
verbose_name=u'From',
related_name='sent_messages',
)
user_to = models.ForeignKey(
User,
verbose_name=u'To',
related_name='received_messages',
)
Is there any way to get all the addresses for a particular user. For example, if
u = User.objects.get(id=1)
messages = PrivateMessage.objects.filter(user_from=u)
for m in messages:
users.add(m.user_to)
How to obtain a list of users that appear in user_to for these messages using only Django ORM methods?

Answer 1

I think a better idea would be to define ManyToManyField on the User model:
class User(AbstractUser):
#...
receivers = models.ManyToManyField('self', through='Message',
symmetrical=False, related_name="senders")
class Message(models.Model):
user_from = models.ForeignKey(MyUser, related_name='messages_from')
user_to = models.ForeignKey(MyUser, related_name='messages_to')
message = models.CharField(max_length=100, default="")
#...
Then to retrieve users list on the other end you simply do:
User.objects.get(id=1).receivers.all() # who I sent the message to
User.objects.get(id=1).senders.all() # who sent me a message
This way you have a nice clear API.

Answer 2

Finally, I ended up writing three queries:
users_from = set(PrivateMessage.objects.filter(
user_to=self.request.user,
).values_list(
'user_from__pk',
flat=True,
))
users_to = set(PrivateMessage.objects.filter(
user_from=self.request.user,
).values_list(
'user_to__pk',
flat=True,
))
interlocutors = User.objects.filter(pk__in=users_from.union(users_to))

Answer 3

I saw this docs
Maybe you can try:
u = User.objects.get(id=1)
users = User.objects.filter(received_messages__user_from=u).distinct()

Answer 4

related_name field makes our queries especially the ones using foreign key (on to many relation) easier, shorter and cleaner.
Let say we have 2 models classes Library and Book.
class Library(Models.model):
name = models.CharField(max_length = 100)
`class Book(Models.model):
title = models.CharField(max_length = 100)
library = models.ForeignKey(Library,
on_delete = models.CASCADE,
related_name = 'books')`
Here we have a one to many relation from Library to Book using foriegn key.
And in my django shell. I can create a new Library and a book related to that library in the following manner.
`from <app_name>.models import *`
`library = Library.objects.create(name = 'Big Library')`
`Book.objects.create(title = 'Awesome book', library = library`
Now I can query the book of the library using related name of model Book class:
`library.books.all()`
rather than using the starting the query from Book model as:
Book.objects.filter(library = library)