How do I get the object if it exists, or None if it does not exist?

Question

When I ask the model manager to get an object, it raises DoesNotExist when there is no matching object.

go = Content.objects.get(name=\"baby\")
         


        

Answer 1

If you want a simple one-line solution that doesn't involve exception handling, conditional statements or a requirement of Django 1.6+, do this instead:

x = next(iter(SomeModel.objects.filter(foo='bar')), None)

Answer 2

I use Django 2.2.16. And this is how I solve this problem:

from typing import Any

from django.core.exceptions import ObjectDoesNotExist
from django.db import models
from django.db.models.base import ModelBase
from django.db.models.manager import Manager


class SManager(Manager):
    def get_if_exist(self, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any):
        try:
            return self.get(*args, **kwargs)
        except ObjectDoesNotExist:
            return None


class SModelBase(ModelBase):
    def _prepare(cls):
        manager = SManager()
        manager.auto_created = True
        cls.add_to_class("objects", manager)

        super()._prepare()

    class Meta:
        abstract = True


class SModel(models.Model, metaclass=SModelBase):
    managers = False

    class Meta:
        abstract = True

And after that, in every models, you just need to import in:

from custom.models import SModel


class SUser(SModel):
    pass

And in views, you can call like this:

SUser.objects.get_if_exist(id=1)

Answer 3

To make things easier, here is a snippet of the code I wrote, based on inputs from the wonderful replies here:

class MyManager(models.Manager):

    def get_or_none(self, **kwargs):
        try:
            return self.get(**kwargs)
        except ObjectDoesNotExist:
            return None

And then in your model:

class MyModel(models.Model):
    objects = MyManager()

That's it. Now you have MyModel.objects.get() as well as MyModel.objetcs.get_or_none()

Answer 4

This is a copycat from Django's get_object_or_404 except that the method returns None. This is extremely useful when we have to use only() query to retreive certain fields only. This method can accept a model or a queryset.

from django.shortcuts import _get_queryset


def get_object_or_none(klass, *args, **kwargs):
    """
    Use get() to return an object, or return None if object
    does not exist.
    klass may be a Model, Manager, or QuerySet object. All other passed
    arguments and keyword arguments are used in the get() query.
    Like with QuerySet.get(), MultipleObjectsReturned is raised if more than
    one object is found.
    """
    queryset = _get_queryset(klass)
    if not hasattr(queryset, 'get'):
        klass__name = klass.__name__ if isinstance(klass, type) else klass.__class__.__name__
        raise ValueError(
            "First argument to get_object_or_none() must be a Model, Manager, "
            "or QuerySet, not '%s'." % klass__name
        )
    try:
        return queryset.get(*args, **kwargs)
    except queryset.model.DoesNotExist:
        return None

Answer 5

Since django 1.6 you can use first() method like so:

Content.objects.filter(name="baby").first()

Answer 6

Without exception:

if SomeModel.objects.filter(foo='bar').exists():
    x = SomeModel.objects.get(foo='bar')
else:
    x = None

Using an exception:

try:
   x = SomeModel.objects.get(foo='bar')
except SomeModel.DoesNotExist:
   x = None

There is a bit of an argument about when one should use an exception in python. On the one hand, "it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission". While I agree with this, I believe that an exception should remain, well, the exception, and the "ideal case" should run without hitting one.