I have two models:
class Author(models.Model);
name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
class Book(models.Model):
title = models.CharField(max_length=255)
authors = models.ManyToManyField(Author, null=True, blank=True)
Now, I want the info of all the books. So, I did:
book_info = Book.objects.all().values('title', 'authors__name')
And, it gives an output like (for 1 book having 2 authors):
[{'title': u'book1', 'authors__name': u'author1'},{'title': u'book1', 'authors__name': u'author2'}]
What I wanted was something like:
[{'title': u'book1', 'authors': [{'name':u'author1'},{'name':u'author2'}]}]
I may have more fields in the author model, so would like to get those fields as well.
Can I do this in a single query?
What can I do to get something like the desired result?
Django 1.4
Great question, use prefetch_related:
In [3]: [{'name': b.name, 'authors': [a.name for a in b.authors.all()]} for b in Book.objects.prefetch_related('authors')]
(0.000) SELECT "test_app_book"."id", "test_app_book"."name" FROM "test_app_book"; args=()
(0.000) SELECT ("test_app_book_authors"."book_id") AS "_prefetch_related_val", "test_app_author"."id", "test_app_author"."name" FROM "test_app_author" INNER JOIN "test_app_book_authors" ON ("test_app_author"."id" = "test_app_book_authors"."author_id") WHERE "test_app_book_authors"."book_id" IN (1, 2); args=(1, 2)
Out[3]:
[{'authors': [u'a', u'b'], 'name': u'book'},
{'authors': [u'b'], 'name': u'test'}]
Django 1.3
prefetch_related was introduced in Django 1.4. For Django 1.3, you need django-selectreverse:
In [19]: [{'name': b.name, 'authors': [a.name for a in b.authors_prefetch]} for b in Book.objects.select_reverse({'authors_prefetch': 'authors'})]
(0.000) SELECT "test_app_book"."id", "test_app_book"."name" FROM "test_app_book"; args=()
(0.001) SELECT (test_app_book_authors.book_id) AS "main_id", "test_app_author"."id", "test_app_author"."name" FROM "test_app_author" INNER JOIN "test_app_book_authors" ON ("test_app_author"."id" = "test_app_book_authors"."author_id") WHERE "test_app_book_authors"."book_id" IN (1, 2); args=(1, 2)
Out[19]:
[{'authors': [u'a', u'b'], 'name': u'book'},
{'authors': [u'b'], 'name': u'test'}]
Using django-selectreverse:
class Book(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
authors = models.ManyToManyField(Author, null=True, blank=True)
objects = ReverseManager()
To avoid doing two queries as in the descriptive answer from @jpic, you could just manually merge your results afterwards. It feels a bit hacky to me, but it works.
def merge_values(values):
grouped_results = itertools.groupby(values, key=lambda value: value['id'])
merged_values = []
for k, g in grouped_results:
groups = list(g)
merged_value = {}
for group in groups:
for key, val in group.iteritems():
if not merged_value.get(key):
merged_value[key] = val
elif val != merged_value[key]:
if isinstance(merged_value[key], list):
if val not in merged_value[key]:
merged_value[key].append(val)
else:
old_val = merged_value[key]
merged_value[key] = [old_val, val]
merged_values.append(merged_value)
return merged_values
book_info = marge_values(Book.objects.all().values('title', 'authors__name'))
The merge_values function is take from this gist