How can I make a Django update with a conditional case? - django

Question

I would like to use Django to update a field to a different value depending on its current value, but I haven't figured out how to do it without doing 2 separate update statements.
Here's an example of what I'd like to do:
now = timezone.now()
data = MyData.objects.get(pk=dataID)
if data.targetTime < now:
data.targetTime = now + timedelta(days=XX)
else:
data.targetTime = data.targetTime + timedelta(days=XX)
data.save()
Now, I'd like to use an update() statement to avoid overwriting other fields on my data, but I don't know how to do it in a single update(). I tried some code like this, but the second update didn't use the up to date time (I ended up with a field equal to the current time) :
# Update the time to the current time
now = timezone.now()
MyData.objects.filter(pk=dataID).filter(targetTime__lt=now).update(targetTime=now)
# Then add the additional time
MyData.objects.filter(pk=dataID).update(targetTime=F('targetTime') + timedelta(days=XX))
Is there a way I can reduce this to a single update() statement? Something similar to the SQL CASE statement?

Answer 1

You need to use conditional expressions, like this
from django.db.models import Case, When, F
object = MyData.objects.get(pk=dataID)
now = timezone.now()
object.targetTime = Case(
When(targetTime__lt=now, then=now + timedelta(days=XX)),
default=F('targetTime') + timedelta(days=XX)
)
object.save(update_fields=['targetTime'])
For debugging, try running this right after save to see what SQL queries have just run:
import pprint
from django.db import connection
pprint.pprint(["queries", connection.queries])
I've tested this with integers and it works in Django 1.8, I haven't tried dates yet so it might need some tweaking.

Answer 2

Django 1.9 added the Greatest and Least database functions. This is an adaptation of Benjamin Toueg's answer:
from django.db.models import F
from django.db.models.functions import Greatest
MyData.objects.filter(pk=dataID).update(
targetTime=Greatest(F('targetTime'), timezone.now()) + timedelta(days=XX)
)

Answer 3

Simple Example for Django 3 and above:
from django.db.models import Case, Value, When, F
MyModel.objects.filter(abc__id=abc_id_list)\
.update(status=Case(
When(xyz__isnull=False, then=Value("this_value")),
default=Value("default_value"),))

Answer 4

If I understand correctly, you take the maximum time between now and the value in database.
If that is so, you can do it in one line with the max function:
from django.db.models import F
MyData.objects.filter(pk=dataID).update(targetTime=max(F('targetTime'),timezone.now()) + timedelta(days=XX))

Answer 5

Instead of using queryset.update(...), use obj.save(update_fields=['field_one', 'field_two']) (see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/instances/#specifying-which-fields-to-save), which won't overwrite your existing fields.
It's not possible to do this without a select query first (get), because you're doing two different things based on a conditional (i.e., you can't pass that kind of logic to the database with Django - there are limits to what can be achieved with F), but at least this gets you a single insert/update.

Answer 6

I have figured out how to do it with a raw SQL statement:
cursor = connection.cursor()
cursor.execute("UPDATE `mydatabase_name` SET `targetTime` = CASE WHEN `targetTime` < %s THEN %s ELSE (`targetTime` + %s) END WHERE `dataID` = %s", [timezone.now(), timezone.now() + timedelta(days=XX), timedelta(days=XX), dataID])
transaction.commit_unless_managed()
I'm using this for now and it seems to be accomplishing what I want.