Distinguishing parent model's children with Django inheritance

Question

Basically I have a Base class called \"Program\". I then have more specific program model types that use Program as a base class. For 99% of my needs, I don\'t care whether or n

Answer 1

Have you tried hasattr()? Something like this:

if hasattr(program, 'swimprogram'):
    # ...
elif hasattr(program, 'campprogram'):
    # ...

If you are unsure about this approach, try it out in a simple test app first. Here are two simple models that should show if it will work for you and the version of django that you are using (tested in django-1.1.1).

class Archive(models.Model):
    pub_date = models.DateField()

    def __unicode__(self):
        return "Archive: %s" % self.pub_date

class ArchiveB(Archive):
    def __unicode__(self):
        return "ArchiveB: %s" % self.pub_date

And then giving it a spin in the shell:

> a_id = Archive.objects.create(pub_date="2010-10-10").id
> b_id = ArchiveB.objects.create(pub_date="2011-11-11").id
> a = Archive.objects.get(id=a_id)
> b = Archive.objects.get(id=b_id)
> (a, b) # they both look like archive objects
(, )
> hasattr(a, 'archiveb')
False
> hasattr(b, 'archiveb') # but only one has access to an ArchiveB
True