How to dynamically compose an OR query filter in Django?

Question

From an example you can see a multiple OR query filter:

Article.objects.filter(Q(pk=1) | Q(pk=2) | Q(pk=3))

For example, this results in:

Answer 1

Solution which use reduce and or_ operators to filter by multiply fields.

from functools import reduce
from operator import or_
from django.db.models import Q

filters = {'field1': [1, 2], 'field2': ['value', 'other_value']}

qs = Article.objects.filter(
   reduce(or_, (Q(**{f'{k}__in': v}) for k, v in filters.items()))
)

p.s. f is a new format strings literal. It was introduced in python 3.6

Answer 2

Another option I wasn't aware of until recently - QuerySet also overrides the &, |, ~, etc, operators. The other answers that OR Q objects are a better solution to this question, but for the sake of interest/argument, you can do:

id_list = [1, 2, 3]
q = Article.objects.filter(pk=id_list[0])
for i in id_list[1:]:
    q |= Article.objects.filter(pk=i)

str(q.query) will return one query with all the filters in the WHERE clause.

Answer 3

For loop:

values = [1, 2, 3]
q = Q(pk__in=[]) # generic "always false" value
for val in values:
    q |= Q(pk=val)
Article.objects.filter(q)

Reduce:

from functools import reduce
from operator import or_

values = [1, 2, 3]
q_objects = [Q(pk=val) for val in values]
q = reduce(or_, q_objects, Q(pk__in=[]))
Article.objects.filter(q)

Both of these are equivalent to Article.objects.filter(pk__in=values)

It's important to consider what you want when values is empty. Many answers with Q() as a starting value will return everything. Q(pk__in=[]) is a better starting value. It's an always-failing Q object that's handled nicely by the optimizer (even for complex equations).

Article.objects.filter(Q(pk__in=[]))  # doesn't hit DB
Article.objects.filter(Q(pk=None))    # hits DB and returns nothing
Article.objects.none()                # doesn't hit DB
Article.objects.filter(Q())           # returns everything

If you want to return everything when values is empty, you should AND with ~Q(pk__in=[]) to ensure that behaviour:

values = []
q = Q()
for val in values:
    q |= Q(pk=val)
Article.objects.filter(q)                     # everything
Article.objects.filter(q | author="Tolkien")  # only Tolkien

q &= ~Q(pk__in=[])
Article.objects.filter(q)                     # everything
Article.objects.filter(q | author="Tolkien")  # everything

It's important to remember that Q() is nothing, not an always-succeeding Q object. Any operation involving it will just drop it completely.

Answer 4

from functools import reduce
from operator import or_
from django.db.models import Q

values = [1, 2, 3]
query = reduce(or_, (Q(pk=x) for x in values))

Answer 5

You could chain your queries as follows:

values = [1,2,3]

# Turn list of values into list of Q objects
queries = [Q(pk=value) for value in values]

# Take one Q object from the list
query = queries.pop()

# Or the Q object with the ones remaining in the list
for item in queries:
    query |= item

# Query the model
Article.objects.filter(query)

Answer 6

To build more complex queries there is also the option to use built in Q() object's constants Q.OR and Q.AND together with the add() method like so:

list = [1, 2, 3]
# it gets a bit more complicated if we want to dynamically build
# OR queries with dynamic/unknown db field keys, let's say with a list
# of db fields that can change like the following
# list_with_strings = ['dbfield1', 'dbfield2', 'dbfield3']

# init our q objects variable to use .add() on it
q_objects = Q(id__in=[])

# loop trough the list and create an OR condition for each item
for item in list:
    q_objects.add(Q(pk=item), Q.OR)
    # for our list_with_strings we can do the following
    # q_objects.add(Q(**{item: 1}), Q.OR)

queryset = Article.objects.filter(q_objects)

# sometimes the following is helpful for debugging (returns the SQL statement)
# print queryset.query