Django Template logic - django

Question

So I am just now getting to grips with Django,
I want to something relatively straughtforward. I have a model thus:
class Article(models.Model):
id = models.IntegerField(primary_key=True)
volnumber = models.IntegerField(db_column='volNumber')
title = models.TextField()
keywords = models.TextField(blank=True)
start_page = models.IntegerField(null=True, blank=True)
end_page = models.IntegerField(null=True, blank=True)
author_1 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_2 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_3 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_4 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_5 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_6 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_7 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_8 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_9 = models.TextField(blank=True)
author_10 = models.TextField(blank=True)
in my view:
def index(request):
article_list = Article.objects.all()
volume_list = Volume.objects.all()
auth_list = ['author_1', 'author_2', 'author_3', 'author_4', 'author_5', 'author_6', 'author_7', 'author_8', 'author_9', 'author_10', ]
return render_to_response('index.html', {
'article_list': article_list,
'volume_list': volume_list,
'auth_list' : auth_list,
})
and I want to iterate over the first articles authors, as well as eliminating empty entries for the list in the template:
<ul class="articleList">
{% for article in article_list %}
<li>
{% for author in auth_list %}
<i>{{ article."author" }}</i>
{% endfor %}
{{ article.title }}{{ article }}
</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>
obviously that doesn't work, and I'm not sure the template is the place for this logic, but I hope from this it is clear what I am trying to achieve.
Any assistance much appreciated.

Answer 1

I am not sure you want to design a list of authors that way. If you want multiple authors, consider using a new model for Author and then using a ManyToManyField in your Article class to link articles to authors. Then, you can loop through authors in your template like so:
{% for author in article.authors.all %}
<!-- blah blah -->
{% endfor %}
Here is the Author model:
class Author(models.Model):
first_name = models.TextField(...) # don't copy to ..., put whatever params you need
last_name = models.TextField(...)
and the adjusted Article model:
class Article(models.Model):
# add this line
authors = models.ManyToManyField(Author)
Now you do not need to return an auth_list in your view code.

Answer 2

If you don't want to change your data model (although I strongly advice you to follow #andrew-lee suggestion) you are not allowed to call-by-name attributes in the templates. You should do:
# in the view
return render_to_response('index.html', {
'article_list': article_list,
'volume_list': volume_list,
'auth_list' : [getattr(article, name) for name in auth_list],
})
# in the template
{% for author in auth_list %}
<i>{{ author }}</i>
{% endfor %}

Answer 3

Building on what has already been said, it makes the most sense to change your model, but if you want to keep it as-is and display a list of only the author fields which have been filled in, you might do this in the template:
<ul class="articleList">
{% for article in article_list %}
<li>
{% for author in auth_list %}
{% if author %}
<i>{{ author }}</i>
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
{{ article.title }}{{ article }}
</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>