We Keep Coding

Django - calling attribute from queryset with a string

I'm trying to loop over different query sets while not repeating myself too much and have encountered a problem using the queryset class.
This is not necessarily completely a Django-problem.
What I'm trying to do is to use my keylist, which corresponds to a django model's column names, to create a list of the data from those column names, what i want to do is something like this:
if needthisdata==1:
needdata=['column1', 'column2', 'column3']
else:
needdata=['column1', 'column4', 'column7']
entry=djangomodel.get.all().filter(identifier='id')
dictitems=[]
for n in range(0, len(needdata)):
if n==0:
dictitems=[entry.needdata[n]]
else:
dictitems.append(entry.needdata[n])
Which of course doesn't work since the queryset doesn't have a need data attribute, is there some way to call an attribute for a class with a string in this way?

A valid Django statement to obtain a single entry
First of all, there are some semantical problems here:
itentifier should probably be identifier, id, or pk;
you use .all immedately instead of first obtaining a manager (probably .objects); and
you here use a .filter(..) on the queryset to filter on an identifier, but usually this should be a .get(..), since by using a filter, zero, one or more results can be returned in an iterable.
entry = djangomodel.objects.get(id=some_id)
So now we obtain a single entry, but that of course does not resolve
obtaining the columns.
If all elements are real Django columns
In case the columns are real Django fields (so no #propertys, etc.) then we can use values_list, and perform a list(..) constructor on it:
dictitems = list(djangomodel.objects.values_list(*needdata).get(id=some_id))
If case some elements are #propertys
In case not all those fields are real Django fields, then we can use attrgetter instead:
from operator import attrgetter
dictitems = list(attrgetter(*needdata)(djangomodel.objects.get(id=some_id)))

Need Optimization & Performance related to Django ORM Query

I am writing an API in django 1.4.5 which return JSON data to third party application.
This is my current method to retrieve data but it takes more time because i also need related data to be available in JSON.
def get_speakers(request)
speakers = Person.objects.filter(profile__person_type__name='Speaker').select_related('series')
for speaker in speakers:
data['first_name'] = speaker.first_name
data['last_name'] = speaker.last_name
data['series_name'] = speaker.series.name
data['series_id'] = speaker.series.id
return JSONResponse(data_dict)
To achieve optimization i tried as following.
def get_speakers(request)
speakers = Person.objects.filter(profile__person_type__name='Speaker').select_related('series')
data_dict = serializers.serialize("python", speakers)
return JSONResponse(data_dict)
But it returns foreign key for related data in JSON which is useless because i can't get its related data.
Also it try for raw sql then data return in tuple but we need in dictionary format.
Need help to achieve this.
Thanks in advance.

If I were you, I would use the following.
def get_speakers(request)
speakers = Person.objects.filter(profile__person_type__name='Speaker').values('first_name', 'last_name', 'series__name', 'series__id')
return JSONResponse(speakers)
In django ORM, while naming fields only one underscore _ is used. Since two underscore has another usage. In your example series is a foreign key, and if you would like to reach its fields while filtering and getting values, you could use like 'series__name' to get name field of related record.
Besides values method there is values_list method. You could use which is best for you.

Create dictionary of a sqlalchemy query object in Pyramid

I am new to Python and Pyramid. In a test application I am using to learn more about Pyramid, I want to query a database and create a dictionary based on the results of a sqlalchemy query object and finally send the dictionary to the chameleon template.
So far I have the following code (which works fine), but I wanted to know if there is a better way to create my dictionary.
...
index = 0
clients = {}
q = self.request.params['q']
for client in DBSession.query(Client).filter(Client.name.like('%%%s%%' % q)).all():
clients[index] = { "id": client.id, "name": client.name }
index += 1
output = { "clients": clients }
return output
While learning Python, I found a nice way to create a list in a for loop statement like the following:
myvar = [user.name for user in users]
So, the other question I had: is there a similar 'one line' way like the above to create a dictionary of a sqlalchemy query object?
Thanks in advance.

well, yes, we can tighten this up a bit.
First, this pattern:
index = 0
for item in seq:
frobnicate(index, item)
item += 1
is common enough that there's a builtin function that does it automatically, enumerate(), used like this:
for index, item in enumerate(seq):
frobnicate(index, item)
but, I'm not sure you need it, Associating things with an integer index starting from zero is the functionality of a list, you don't really need a dict for that; unless you want to have holes, or need some of the other special features of dicts, just do:
stuff = []
stuff.extend(seq)
when you're only interested in a small subset of the attributes of a database entity, it's a good idea to tell sqlalchemy to emit a query that returns only that:
query = DBSession.query(Client.id, Client.name) \
.filter(q in Client.name)
In the above i've also shortened the .name.like('%%%s%%' % q) into just q in name since they mean the same thing (sqlalchemy expands it into the correct LIKE expression for you)
Queries constructed in this way return a special thing that looks like a tuple, and can be easily turned into a dict by calling _asdict() on it:
so to put it all together
output = [row._asdict() for row in DBSession.query(Client.id, Client.name)
.filter(q in Client.name)]
or, if you really desperately need it to be a dict, you can use a dict comprehension:
output = {index: row._asdict()
for index, row
in enumerate(DBSession.query(Client.id, Client.name)
.filter(q in Client.name))}

#TokenMacGuy gave a nice and detailed answer to your question. However, I have a feeling you've asked a wrong question :)
You don't need to convert SQLALchemy objects to dictionaries before passing them to the template - that would be quite inconvenient. You can pass the result of a query as is and directly use SQLALchemy mapped objects in your template
q = self.request.params['q']
clients = DBSession.query(Client).filter(q in Client.name).all()
return {'clients': clients}

If you want to turn a SqlAlchemy object into a dict, you can use this code:
def obj_to_dict(obj):
return dict((col.name, getattr(obj, col.name)) for col in sqlalchemy_orm.class_mapper(obj.__class__).mapped_table.c)
there is another attribute of the mapped table that has the relationships in it , but the code gets dicey.
you don't need to cast an object into a dict for any of the template libraries, but if you decide to persist the data ( memcached, session, pickle, etc ) you'll either need to use dicts or write some code to 'merge' the persisted data back into the session.
a quick side note- if you render any of this data through json , you'll either need to have a custom json renderer that can handle datetime objects , or change the values in a function.

Django models - how to filter out duplicate values by PK after the fact?

I build a list of Django model objects by making several queries. Then I want to remove any duplicates, (all of these objects are of the same type with an auto_increment int PK), but I can't use set() because they aren't hashable.
Is there a quick and easy way to do this? I'm considering using a dict instead of a list with the id as the key.

In general it's better to combine all your queries into a single query if possible. Ie.
q = Model.objects.filter(Q(field1=f1)|Q(field2=f2))
instead of
q1 = Models.object.filter(field1=f1)
q2 = Models.object.filter(field2=f2)
If the first query is returning duplicated Models then use distinct()
q = Model.objects.filter(Q(field1=f1)|Q(field2=f2)).distinct()
If your query really is impossible to execute with a single command, then you'll have to resort to using a dict or other technique recommended in the other answers. It might be helpful if you posted the exact query on SO and we could see if it would be possible to combine into a single query. In my experience, most queries can be done with a single queryset.

Is there a quick and easy way to do this? I'm considering using a dict instead of a list with the id as the key.
That's exactly what I would do if you were locked into your current structure of making several queries. Then a simply dictionary.values() will return your list back.
If you have a little more flexibility, why not use Q objects? Instead of actually making the queries, store each query in a Q object and use a bitwise or ("|") to execute a single query. This will achieve your goal and save database hits.
Django Q objects

You can use a set if you add the __hash__ function to your model definition so that it returns the id (assuming this doesn't interfere with other hash behaviour you may have in your app):
class MyModel(models.Model):
def __hash__(self):
return self.pk

If the order doesn't matter, use a dict.

Remove "duplicates" depends on how you define "duplicated".
If you want EVERY column (except the PK) to match, that's a pain in the neck -- it's a lot of comparing.
If, on the other hand, you have some "natural key" column (or short set of columns) than you can easily query and remove these.
master = MyModel.objects.get( id=theMasterKey )
dups = MyModel.objects.filter( fld1=master.fld1, fld2=master.fld2 )
dups.all().delete()
If you can identify some shorter set of key fields for duplicate identification, this works pretty well.
Edit
If the model objects haven't been saved to the database yet, you can make a dictionary on a tuple of these keys.
unique = {}
...
key = (anObject.fld1,anObject.fld2)
if key not in unique:
unique[key]= anObject

I use this one:
dict(zip(map(lambda x: x.pk,items),items)).values()

In Django, how does one filter a QuerySet with dynamic field lookups?

Given a class:
from django.db import models
class Person(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=20)
Is it possible, and if so how, to have a QuerySet that filters based on dynamic arguments? For example:
# Instead of:
Person.objects.filter(name__startswith='B')
# ... and:
Person.objects.filter(name__endswith='B')
# ... is there some way, given:
filter_by = '{0}__{1}'.format('name', 'startswith')
filter_value = 'B'
# ... that you can run the equivalent of this?
Person.objects.filter(filter_by=filter_value)
# ... which will throw an exception, since `filter_by` is not
# an attribute of `Person`.

Python's argument expansion may be used to solve this problem:
kwargs = {
'{0}__{1}'.format('name', 'startswith'): 'A',
'{0}__{1}'.format('name', 'endswith'): 'Z'
}
Person.objects.filter(**kwargs)
This is a very common and useful Python idiom.

A simplified example:
In a Django survey app, I wanted an HTML select list showing registered users. But because we have 5000 registered users, I needed a way to filter that list based on query criteria (such as just people who completed a certain workshop). In order for the survey element to be re-usable, I needed for the person creating the survey question to be able to attach those criteria to that question (don't want to hard-code the query into the app).
The solution I came up with isn't 100% user friendly (requires help from a tech person to create the query) but it does solve the problem. When creating the question, the editor can enter a dictionary into a custom field, e.g.:
{'is_staff':True,'last_name__startswith':'A',}
That string is stored in the database. In the view code, it comes back in as self.question.custom_query . The value of that is a string that looks like a dictionary. We turn it back into a real dictionary with eval() and then stuff it into the queryset with **kwargs:
kwargs = eval(self.question.custom_query)
user_list = User.objects.filter(**kwargs).order_by("last_name")

Additionally to extend on previous answer that made some requests for further code elements I am adding some working code that I am using
in my code with Q. Let's say that I in my request it is possible to have or not filter on fields like:
publisher_id
date_from
date_until
Those fields can appear in query but they may also be missed.
This is how I am building filters based on those fields on an aggregated query that cannot be further filtered after the initial queryset execution:
# prepare filters to apply to queryset
filters = {}
if publisher_id:
filters['publisher_id'] = publisher_id
if date_from:
filters['metric_date__gte'] = date_from
if date_until:
filters['metric_date__lte'] = date_until
filter_q = Q(**filters)
queryset = Something.objects.filter(filter_q)...
Hope this helps since I've spent quite some time to dig this up.
Edit:
As an additional benefit, you can use lists too. For previous example, if instead of publisher_id you have a list called publisher_ids, than you could use this piece of code:
if publisher_ids:
filters['publisher_id__in'] = publisher_ids

Django.db.models.Q is exactly what you want in a Django way.

This looks much more understandable to me:
kwargs = {
'name__startswith': 'A',
'name__endswith': 'Z',
***(Add more filters here)***
}
Person.objects.filter(**kwargs)

A really complex search forms usually indicates that a simpler model is trying to dig it's way out.
How, exactly, do you expect to get the values for the column name and operation?
Where do you get the values of 'name' an 'startswith'?
filter_by = '%s__%s' % ('name', 'startswith')
A "search" form? You're going to -- what? -- pick the name from a list of names? Pick the operation from a list of operations? While open-ended, most people find this confusing and hard-to-use.
How many columns have such filters? 6? 12? 18?
A few? A complex pick-list doesn't make sense. A few fields and a few if-statements make sense.
A large number? Your model doesn't sound right. It sounds like the "field" is actually a key to a row in another table, not a column.
Specific filter buttons. Wait... That's the way the Django admin works. Specific filters are turned into buttons. And the same analysis as above applies. A few filters make sense. A large number of filters usually means a kind of first normal form violation.
A lot of similar fields often means there should have been more rows and fewer fields.