Want to make sure object not in queryset before adding it - django

Question

My "Event" object has a "Name" field. There is the possibility that the name is wrong, so a user may suggest a new name. That name gets put into the event's "suggestedN" list. However, I don't want there to be duplicates of one suggestion in that list. I felt like this was a straightforward problem, but for some reason am not finding much success.
Here is how my view currently looks:
#login_required
def suggestName(request):
name = request.POST['name'].strip()
event_id = request.POST['event_id']
try:
e = Event.objects.get(event_id = event_id)
except Event.DoesNotExist:
e = customEvent.objects.get(event_id = event_id)
if name in e.suggestedN.all():
pass
else:
(some code)
Is my if name in e.suggestedN.all() statement wrong?
Here's a brief view of my Event's model:
class Event(models.Model):
def __unicode__(self):
return self.title
suggestedN = models.ManyToManyField('suggestedName', blank = 'TRUE', null = 'TRUE')
class suggestedName(models.Model):
def __unicode__(self):
return self.name
name = models.CharField(max_length=200, blank = 'TRUE', null = 'TRUE')
votes = models.IntegerField(default = 0)

Answer 1

You should use the name attribute on m2m not the m2m itself to compare
#login_required
def suggestName(request):
name = request.POST['name'].strip()
event_id = request.POST['event_id']
try:
e = Event.objects.get(event_id = event_id)
except Event.DoesNotExist:
e = customEvent.objects.get(event_id = event_id)
if name in e.suggestedN.values_list('name', flat=True):
pass
else:
(some code)