A puzzle concerning Q objects and Foreign Keys
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06-07-2019 - |
Question
I've got a model like this:
class Thing(models.Model):
property1 = models.IntegerField()
property2 = models.IntegerField()
property3 = models.IntegerField()
class Subthing(models.Model):
subproperty = models.IntegerField()
thing = modelsForeignkey(Thing)
main = models.BooleanField()
I've got a function that is passed a list of filters where each filter is of the form {'type':something, 'value':x}. This function needs to return a set of results ANDing all the filters together:
final_q = Q()
for filter in filters:
q = None
if filter['type'] =='thing-property1':
q = Q(property1=filter['value'])
elif filter['type'] =='thing-property2':
q = Q(property2=filter['value'])
elif filter['type'] =='thing-property2':
q = Q(property3=filter['value'])
if q:
final_q = final_q & q
return Thing.objects.filter(final_q).distinct()
Each Subthing has a Boolean property 'main'. Every Thing has 1 and only 1 Subthing where main==True.
I now need to add filter that returns all the Things which have a Subthing where main==True
and subproperty==filter['value']
Can I do this as part of the Q
object I'm constructing? If not how else? The queryset I get before my new filter can be quite large so I would like a method that doesn't involve looping over the results.
Solution
It's a bit easier to understand if you explicitly give your Subthings a "related_name" in their relationship to the Thing
class Subthing(models.Model):
...
thing = models.ForeignKey(Thing, related_name='subthings')
...
Now, you use Django join syntax to build your Q object:
Q(subthings__main=True) & Q(subthings__subproperty=filter['value'])
The reverse relationship has the default name 'subthing_set', but I find that it's easier to follow if you give it a better name like 'subthings'.
OTHER TIPS
Using (instead of final_q=Q()
in the beginning)
final_q=Q(subthing_set__main=True)
sub_vals = map(lambda v: v['value'], filters)
if sub_vals:
final_q = final_q & Q(subthing_set__subproperty__in=sub_vals)
should get you what you want, you can also adjust your loop to build the sub_vals list and apply it after the loop.
subthing_set is and automatically added related field added to the Thing to access related Subthings.
you can assign another related name, e.g.
thing=models.ForeignKey(Thing,related_name='subthings')