pythondjangodjango-modelsdjango-managers

How to write manager class which use filter field as computed field not as a part of model fields?

I have a model Student with manager StudentManager as given below. As property gives the last date by adding college_duration in join_date. But when I execute this property computation is working well, but for StudentManager it gives an error. How to write manager class which on the fly computes some field using model fields and which is used to filter records.

The computed field is not in model fields. still, I want that as filter criteria.

class StudentManager(models.Manager):

    def passed_students(self):
        return self.filter(college_end_date__lt=timezone.now())


class Student(models.Model):
   
    join_date = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    college_duration = models.IntegerField(default=4)

    objects = StudentManager()

    @property
    def college_end_date(self):
        last_date = self.join_date + timezone.timedelta(days=self.college_duration)
        return last_date

Error Django gives. when I tried to access Student.objects.passed_students()

django.core.exceptions.FieldError: Cannot resolve keyword 'college_end_date' into field. Choices are: join_date, college_duration
Solution

  • Q 1. How alias queries done in Django ORM?

    By using the annotate(...)--(Django Doc) or alias(...) (New in Django 3.2) if you're using the value only as a filter.

    Q 2. Why property not accessed in Django managers?

    Because the model managers (more accurately, the QuerySet s) are wrapping things that are being done in the database. You can call the model managers as a high-level database wrapper too.

    But, the property college_end_date is only defined in your model class and the database is not aware of it, and hence the error.

    Q 3. How to write manager to filter records based on the field which is not in models, but can be calculated using fields present in the model?

    Using annotate(...) method is the proper Django way of doing so. As a side note, a complex property logic may not be re-create with the annotate(...) method.

    In your case, I would change college_duration field from IntegerField(...) to DurationField(...)--(Django Doc) since its make more sense (to me)

    Later, update your manager and the properties as,

    from django.db import models
from django.utils import timezone


class StudentManager(models.Manager):

    <b>def passed_students(self):
        default_qs = self.get_queryset()
        college_end = models.ExpressionWrapper(
            models.F('join_date') + models.F('college_duration'),
            output_field=models.DateField()
        )
        return default_qs \
            .annotate(college_end=college_end) \
            .filter(college_end__lt=timezone.now().date())</b>


class Student(models.Model):
    join_date = models.DateTimeField()
    college_duration = models.DurationField()

    objects = StudentManager()

    @property
    def college_end_date(self):
        # return date by summing the datetime and timedelta objects
        return <b>(self.join_date + self.college_duration).date()

    Note: