pythondjangodjango-modelsdjango-signals

Identify the changed fields in django post_save signal


I'm using django's post_save signal to execute some statements after saving the model.

class Mode(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=5)
    mode = models.BooleanField()


from django.db.models.signals import post_save
from django.dispatch import receiver

@receiver(post_save, sender=Mode)
def post_save(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
        # do some stuff
        pass

Now I want to execute a statement based on whether the value of the mode field has changed or not.

@receiver(post_save, sender=Mode)
def post_save(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
        # if value of `mode` has changed:
        #  then do this
        # else:
        #  do that
        pass

I looked at a few SOF threads and a blog but couldn't find a solution to this. All of them were trying to use the pre_save method or form which are not my use case. https://docs.djangoproject.com/es/1.9/ref/signals/#post-save in the django docs doesn't mention a direct way to do this.

An answer in the link below looks promising but I don't know how to use it. I'm not sure if the latest django version supports it or not, because I used ipdb to debug this and found that the instance variable has no attribute has_changed as mentioned in the below answer.

Django: When saving, how can you check if a field has changed?


Solution

  • Set it up on the __init__ of your model so you'll have access to it.

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(YourModel, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.__original_mode = self.mode
    

    Now you can perform something like:

    if instance.mode != instance.__original_mode:
        # do something useful