Generate a random alphanumeric string as a primary key for a model

Question

I would like a model to generate automatically a random alphanumeric string as its primary key when I create a new instance of it.

example:

from django.d         


        

Answer 1

Here's how I would do it without making the field a primary key:

from django.db import IntegrityError

class MyTemporaryObject(models.Model):
    auto_pseudoid = models.CharField(max_length=16, blank=True, editable=False, unique=True)
    # add index=True if you plan to look objects up by it
    # blank=True is so you can validate objects before saving - the save method will ensure that it gets a value

    # other fields as desired

    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if not self.auto_pseudoid:
            self.auto_pseudoid = generate_random_alphanumeric(16)
            # using your function as above or anything else
        success = False
        failures = 0
        while not success:
            try:
                super(MyTemporaryObject, self).save(*args, **kwargs)
            except IntegrityError:
                 failures += 1
                 if failures > 5: # or some other arbitrary cutoff point at which things are clearly wrong
                     raise
                 else:
                     # looks like a collision, try another random value
                     self.auto_pseudoid = generate_random_alphanumeric(16)
            else:
                 success = True

Two problems that this avoids, compared to using the field as the primary key are that:

1) Django's built in relationship fields require integer keys

2) Django uses the presence of the primary key in the database as a sign that save should update an existing record rather than insert a new one. This means if you do get a collision in your primary key field, it'll silently overwrite whatever else used to be in the row.