Using Django 2.1.5, I have one model that is completely inherited by another model. Both tables in DB. I want to save 'revisions' of the model as the inherited model. All fields should be the same at the time of the copy (including the id/pk).
What's the right and quick way to copy the instance of the parent model to the inherited?
Let's say these are the models (but with a lot of fields, foreign keys, json fields..):
class MyModel(models.Model):
id = models.UUIDField(default=uuid.uuid4, editable=False, db_index=True, unique=True, primary_key=True)
identifier = models.IntegerField(default=-1)
title = models.CharField(max_length=1000)
revision = models.IntegerField(default=0)
class MyModelRevisions(MyModel):
pass
Now, I want to take an instance of MyModel and completely copy it to MyModelRevisions.
I thought of something like this:
model_revision = MyModelRevisions(MyModel.objects.get(pk=my_model.pk))
model_revision.save()
But I'm getting an error message saying that the title of my_model is not a valid UUID.
A simple answer would be something like serialize/deserialize the object to create a new one:
from django.forms.models import model_to_dict
revision = MyModelRevisions(**model_to_dict(my_model_instance, fields=['id', 'identifier', 'title', 'revision']))
revision.save()
But maybe you want to give a look to something like django-reversion
I'm trying to figure out the best way to set up the following django model (genericised for security reasons).
ThingA:
User(M2M through "UserRelation")
ThingB:
User(M2M through "UserRelation")
ThingC:
User(M2M through "UserRelation")
User:
Login_name
UserRelation:
User (foreginkey)
Thing (foreignkey) #is this generic to any of the above "things"
Privilege
I understand using "through" between two distinct models, but I'm not sure how to apply this to multiple models. Would I define a foreignkey for each of the "Thing" models in my UserRelation Model?
It looks like you are trying to setup a generic many-to-many relationship. There is a dedicated django app that you can be use for this purpose: django-gm2m
Here is how to use it in your generic case:
from django.db import models
from django.contrib.contenttypes.fields import GenericForeignKey
from gm2m import GM2MField
class ThingA(models.Model):
pass
class ThingB(models.Model):
pass
class ThingC(models.Model):
pass
class User(models.Model):
login_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
things = GM2MField(through='UserRelation')
class UserRelation(models.Model):
user = models.ForeignKey(User)
thing = GenericForeignKey(ct_field='thing_ct', fk_field='thing_fk')
thing_ct = models.ForeignKey(ContentType)
thing_fk = models.CharField(max_length=255)
privilege = models.CharField(max_length=1)
You can now access all the things for a given user and all the User instances for a given 'thing', as well as the privilege attribute for each UserRelation instance.
This will additionally provide you with a handful of benefits (reverse relations, prefetching, etc.) you may need. A GM2MField basically behaves exactly like a django ManyToManyField.
Disclaimer: I am the author of django-gm2m
I have three model classes:
django.contrib.auth.models.User, reffered to as User
mysite.models.Profile, reffered to as Profile
mysite.models.Subscriber, reffered to as Subscriber
Profile inherits from User in a way that is well described in docs as a solution to add custom properties to User model without bothering with swappable models (which were only added in version 1.5).
While Profile and Subscriber are different objects, they do share some properties. Namely, I want to use custom primary key algorithm with both and override save() method in a similar way, so that code can be reused in accordance with DRY. Now, if both were plain model classes, that would be simple:
class BaseProfile(models.Model):
key = models.PositiveIntegerField(primary_key=True)
activated = models.BooleanField(default=False)
...
class Meta:
abstract = True
def save():
...
class Profile(BaseProfile):
...
class Subscriber(BaseProfile):
...
However, Profile already uses multi-table inheritance. I'm thinking of a way similar to this:
class BaseProfile(models.Model):
key = models.PositiveIntegerField(primary_key=True)
activated = models.BooleanField(default=False)
...
class Meta:
abstract = True
def save():
...
class Profile(BaseProfile, User):
user = models.OneToOneField(User, parent_link=True, blank=True, null=True, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
...
class Subscriber(BaseProfile):
...
Would that be possible? If so, what order of inheritance is needed in my case, so that both model fields and save() method are called in a correct way? Will Meta of both model class not get in conflict?
The documentation you link to does not describe inheriting from User via multi-table inheritance. It does explain that you can link a 'profile' like object by using a OneToOneField. Try:
class Profile(BaseProfile):
user = models.OneToOneField(User, blank=True, null=True, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
...
I suspect you don't actually want blank=True and null=True in there, however.
This approach does mean that your User objects will very likely not have the same primary keys as their corresponding Profile objects but this might well be OK for you.
Besides the syntax, what's the difference between using a django abstract model and using plain Python inheritance with django models? Pros and cons?
UPDATE: I think my question was misunderstood and I received responses for the difference between an abstract model and a class that inherits from django.db.models.Model. I actually want to know the difference between a model class that inherits from a django abstract class (Meta: abstract = True) and a plain Python class that inherits from say, 'object' (and not models.Model).
Here is an example:
class User(object):
first_name = models.CharField(..
def get_username(self):
return self.username
class User(models.Model):
first_name = models.CharField(...
def get_username(self):
return self.username
class Meta:
abstract = True
class Employee(User):
title = models.CharField(...
I actually want to know the difference between a model class that
inherits from a django abstract class (Meta: abstract = True) and a
plain Python class that inherits from say, 'object' (and not
models.Model).
Django will only generate tables for subclasses of models.Model, so the former...
class User(models.Model):
first_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
def get_username(self):
return self.username
class Meta:
abstract = True
class Employee(User):
title = models.CharField(max_length=255)
...will cause a single table to be generated, along the lines of...
CREATE TABLE myapp_employee
(
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
first_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
title VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);
...whereas the latter...
class User(object):
first_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
def get_username(self):
return self.username
class Employee(User):
title = models.CharField(max_length=255)
...won't cause any tables to be generated.
You could use multiple inheritance to do something like this...
class User(object):
first_name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
def get_username(self):
return self.username
class Employee(User, models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=255)
...which would create a table, but it will ignore the fields defined in the User class, so you'll end up with a table like this...
CREATE TABLE myapp_employee
(
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
title VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);
An abstract model creates a table with the entire set of columns for each subchild, whereas using "plain" Python inheritance creates a set of linked tables (aka "multi-table inheritance"). Consider the case in which you have two models:
class Vehicle(models.Model):
num_wheels = models.PositiveIntegerField()
class Car(Vehicle):
make = models.CharField(…)
year = models.PositiveIntegerField()
If Vehicle is an abstract model, you'll have a single table:
app_car:
| id | num_wheels | make | year
However, if you use plain Python inheritance, you'll have two tables:
app_vehicle:
| id | num_wheels
app_car:
| id | vehicle_id | make | model
Where vehicle_id is a link to a row in app_vehicle that would also have the number of wheels for the car.
Now, Django will put this together nicely in object form so you can access num_wheels as an attribute on Car, but the underlying representation in the database will be different.
Update
To address your updated question, the difference between inheriting from a Django abstract class and inheriting from Python's object is that the former is treated as a database object (so tables for it are synced to the database) and it has the behavior of a Model. Inheriting from a plain Python object gives the class (and its subclasses) none of those qualities.
The main difference is how the databases tables for the models are created.
If you use inheritance without abstract = True Django will create a separate table for both the parent and the child model which hold the fields defined in each model.
If you use abstract = True for the base class Django will only create a table for the classes that inherit from the base class - no matter if the fields are defined in the base class or the inheriting class.
Pros and cons depend on the architecture of your application.
Given the following example models:
class Publishable(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(...)
date = models.DateField(....)
class Meta:
# abstract = True
class BlogEntry(Publishable):
text = models.TextField()
class Image(Publishable):
image = models.ImageField(...)
If the Publishable class is not abstract Django will create a table for publishables with the columns title and date and separate tables for BlogEntry and Image. The advantage of this solution would be that you are able to query across all publishables for fields defined in the base model, no matter if they are blog entries or images. But therefore Django will have to do joins if you e.g. do queries for images...
If making Publishable abstract = True Django will not create a table for Publishable, but only for blog entries and images, containing all fields (also the inherited ones). This would be handy because no joins would be needed to an operation such as get.
Also see Django's documentation on model inheritance.
Just wanted to add something which I haven't seen in other answers.
Unlike with python classes, field name hiding is not permited with model inheritance.
For example, I have experimented issues with an use case as follows:
I had a model inheriting from django's auth PermissionMixin:
class PermissionsMixin(models.Model):
"""
A mixin class that adds the fields and methods necessary to support
Django's Group and Permission model using the ModelBackend.
"""
is_superuser = models.BooleanField(_('superuser status'), default=False,
help_text=_('Designates that this user has all permissions without '
'explicitly assigning them.'))
groups = models.ManyToManyField(Group, verbose_name=_('groups'),
blank=True, help_text=_('The groups this user belongs to. A user will '
'get all permissions granted to each of '
'his/her group.'))
user_permissions = models.ManyToManyField(Permission,
verbose_name=_('user permissions'), blank=True,
help_text='Specific permissions for this user.')
class Meta:
abstract = True
# ...
Then I had my mixin which among other things I wanted it to override the related_name of the groups field. So it was more or less like this:
class WithManagedGroupMixin(object):
groups = models.ManyToManyField(Group, verbose_name=_('groups'),
related_name="%(app_label)s_%(class)s",
blank=True, help_text=_('The groups this user belongs to. A user will '
'get all permissions granted to each of '
'his/her group.'))
I was using this 2 mixins as follows:
class Member(PermissionMixin, WithManagedGroupMixin):
pass
So yeah, I expected this to work but it didn't.
But the issue was more serious because the error I was getting wasn't pointing to the models at all, I had no idea of what was going wrong.
While trying to solve this I randomly decided to change my mixin and convert it to an abstract model mixin. The error changed to this:
django.core.exceptions.FieldError: Local field 'groups' in class 'Member' clashes with field of similar name from base class 'PermissionMixin'
As you can see, this error does explain what is going on.
This was a huge difference, in my opinion :)
The main difference is when you inherit the User class. One version will behave like a simple class, and the other will behave like a Django modeel.
If you inherit the base "object" version, your Employee class will just be a standard class, and first_name won't become part of a database table. You can't create a form or use any other Django features with it.
If you inherit the models.Model version, your Employee class will have all the methods of a Django Model, and it will inherit the first_name field as a database field that can be used in a form.
According to the documentation, an Abstract Model "provides a way to factor out common information at the Python level, whilst still only creating one database table per child model at the database level."
I will prefer the abstract class in most of the cases because it does not create a separate table and the ORM does not need to create joins in the database. And using abstract class is pretty simple in Django
class Vehicle(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(...)
Name = models.CharField(....)
class Meta:
abstract = True
class Car(Vehicle):
color = models.CharField()
class Bike(Vehicle):
feul_average = models.IntegerField(...)
How can i update the existing object of intermediate model using generic view?
class Person(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=128)
def __unicode__(self):
return self.name
class Group(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=128)
members = models.ManyToManyField(Person, through='Membership')
def __unicode__(self):
return self.name
class Membership(models.Model):
person = models.ForeignKey(Person)
group = models.ForeignKey(Group)
date_joined = models.DateField()
invite_reason = models.CharField(max_length=64)
Currently i'm using generic views concept to update object, but I'm facing problem hoe to update field which exist in intermediate model?
If i generate modelform for Group class, then how can i update the associated field (intermediate model field) using generic view concept?
In above i want to update invite reason field
Thanks in advance
I think there are some missing views in generic or class-based views (which I highly recommend you if your are not already using them), and other people thinks in the same way...
Take a look at django-extra-views project, it implements those missing views.