Django admin search: how to override the default handler?

Question

I wish to customize the way in which search queries across the search_fields.

Is there a way to do it without hacking deeply into the Django code or creating a totally i

Answer 1

It is very easy to do this in django 1.6

ModelAdmin.get_search_results(request, queryset, search_term) New in Django 1.6.

import operator
# from django.utils.six.moves import reduce  # if Python 3
from django.db.models import Q

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'age')
    search_fields = ('name',)

    def get_search_results(self, request, queryset, search_term):
        # search_term is what you input in admin site
        # queryset is search results
        queryset, use_distinct = super(PersonAdmin, self).get_search_results(request, queryset, search_term)

        search_term_list = search_term.split(' ')#['apple','bar']
        # you can also use `self.search_fields` instead of following `search_columns`
        search_columns = ('name','age','address')
        #convert to Q(name='apple') | Q(name='bar') | Q(age='apple') | ...
        query_condition = reduce(operator.or_, [Q(**{c:v}) for c in search_columns for v in search_term_list])

        queryset = self.model.objects.filter(query_condition)
        # NOTICE, if you want to use the query before
        # queryset = queryset.filter(query_condition)
        return queryset, use_distinct