Back
Sep 23, 2010

Dynamic class generation, QuerySetManager and use_for_related_fields

It appears that not everyone knows that in python you can create classes dynamically without metaclasses. I'll show an example of how to do it.

So we've learned how to use custom QuerySet to chain requests:

Article.objects.old().public()

Now we need to make it work for related objects:

user.articles.old().public()

This is done using use_for_related_fields, but it needs a little trick. Thing is that in django related managers are initialized without arguments, and our QuerySetManager takes argument - queryset class.

objects = QuerySetManager(MyQuerySet)

We have to update QuerySetManager in such a way, that will allow setting queryset as class field:

class QuerySetManager(models.Manager):
    use_for_related_fields = True
    queryset_class = QuerySet

    def get_query_set(self):
        return self.queryset_class(self.model, using=self._db)

    def __getattr__(self, key):
        return getattr(self.get_query_set(), key)

In order to use this manager, we have to create a sublcass and set queryset_class:

class MyManager(QuerySetManager):
    queryset_class = MyQuerySet

It's not fun to create such class every time. So we'll write a function that does it for us:

def queryset_manager(qs_class):
    class Manager(QuerySetManager):
        queryset_class = qs_class
    return Manager()

Now it's enough to write:

objects = queryset_manager(MyQuerySet)

Subscribe for the news and updates

More thoughts
Feb 3, 2025Technology
Figma for Developers: What Dev Mode Offers and How to Use It

This article explores Figma’s Dev Mode, a tool that streamlines design-to-code translation by enabling precise inspection, automated code generation, and seamless integration with design systems.

Dec 8, 2022Technology
How to create a route finder on an SVG map

In one of our recent projects, we had an interesting case: the whole application was built around an interactive map for a fairly large shopping mall, and the main goal of the system was to plot the closest route to a user-selected destination.

Aug 18, 2022Technology
5 Best Practices of RESTful API Design to Keep Your Users Happy

Dive into our guide to RESTful API best practices

Apr 19, 2022Technology
Improve efficiency of your SELECT queries

SQL is a fairly complicated language with a steep learning curve. For a large number of people who make use of SQL, learning to apply it efficiently takes lots of trials and errors. Here are some tips on how you can make your SELECT queries better. The majority of tips should be applicable to any relational database management system, but the terminology and exact namings will be taken from PostgreSQL.

Jul 27, 2017Technology
How to Deploy Django app with AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

In this article I'll show you how to deploy Django application to AWS Beanstalk.

Jan 28, 2017Technology
Creating a site preview like in slack (using aiohttp)

In this article we will write a small library for pulling metadata and creating a preview for a site just like Slack does.