Check if OneToOneField is None in Django

Question

I have two models like this:

class Type1Profile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, unique=True)
    ...


class Type2Profile(models.Model):
            


        

Answer 1

To check if the (OneToOne) relation exists or not, you can use the hasattr function:

if hasattr(request.user, 'type1profile'):
    # do something
elif hasattr(request.user, 'type2profile'):
    # do something else
else:
    # do something else

Answer 2

I like joctee's answer, because it's so simple.

if hasattr(request.user, 'type1profile'):
    # do something
elif hasattr(request.user, 'type2profile'):
    # do something else
else:
    # do something else

Other commenters have raised concerns that it may not work with certain versions of Python or Django, but the Django documentation shows this technique as one of the options:

You can also use hasattr to avoid the need for exception catching:

>>> hasattr(p2, 'restaurant')
False

Of course, the documentation also shows the exception catching technique:

p2 doesn’t have an associated restaurant:

>>> from django.core.exceptions import ObjectDoesNotExist
>>> try:
>>>     p2.restaurant
>>> except ObjectDoesNotExist:
>>>     print("There is no restaurant here.")
There is no restaurant here.

I agree with Joshua that catching the exception makes it clearer what's happening, but it just seems messier to me. Perhaps this is a reasonable compromise?

>>> print(Restaurant.objects.filter(place=p2).first())
None

This is just querying the Restaurant objects by place. It returns None if that place has no restaurant.

Here's an executable snippet for you to play with the options. If you have Python, Django, and SQLite3 installed, it should just run. I tested it with Python 2.7, Python 3.4, Django 1.9.2, and SQLite3 3.8.2.

# Tested with Django 1.9.2
import sys

import django
from django.apps import apps
from django.apps.config import AppConfig
from django.conf import settings
from django.core.exceptions import ObjectDoesNotExist
from django.db import connections, models, DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS
from django.db.models.base import ModelBase

NAME = 'udjango'


def main():
    setup()

    class Place(models.Model):
        name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
        address = models.CharField(max_length=80)

        def __str__(self):              # __unicode__ on Python 2
            return "%s the place" % self.name

    class Restaurant(models.Model):
        place = models.OneToOneField(Place, primary_key=True)
        serves_hot_dogs = models.BooleanField(default=False)
        serves_pizza = models.BooleanField(default=False)

        def __str__(self):              # __unicode__ on Python 2
            return "%s the restaurant" % self.place.name

    class Waiter(models.Model):
        restaurant = models.ForeignKey(Restaurant)
        name = models.CharField(max_length=50)

        def __str__(self):              # __unicode__ on Python 2
            return "%s the waiter at %s" % (self.name, self.restaurant)

    syncdb(Place)
    syncdb(Restaurant)
    syncdb(Waiter)

    p1 = Place(name='Demon Dogs', address='944 W. Fullerton')
    p1.save()
    p2 = Place(name='Ace Hardware', address='1013 N. Ashland')
    p2.save()
    r = Restaurant(place=p1, serves_hot_dogs=True, serves_pizza=False)
    r.save()

    print(r.place)
    print(p1.restaurant)

    # Option 1: try/except
    try:
        print(p2.restaurant)
    except ObjectDoesNotExist:
        print("There is no restaurant here.")

    # Option 2: getattr and hasattr
    print(getattr(p2, 'restaurant', 'There is no restaurant attribute.'))
    if hasattr(p2, 'restaurant'):
        print('Restaurant found by hasattr().')
    else:
        print('Restaurant not found by hasattr().')

    # Option 3: a query
    print(Restaurant.objects.filter(place=p2).first())


def setup():
    DB_FILE = NAME + '.db'
    with open(DB_FILE, 'w'):
        pass  # wipe the database
    settings.configure(
        DEBUG=True,
        DATABASES={
            DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS: {
                'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
                'NAME': DB_FILE}},
        LOGGING={'version': 1,
                 'disable_existing_loggers': False,
                 'formatters': {
                    'debug': {
                        'format': '%(asctime)s[%(levelname)s]'
                                  '%(name)s.%(funcName)s(): %(message)s',
                        'datefmt': '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'}},
                 'handlers': {
                    'console': {
                        'level': 'DEBUG',
                        'class': 'logging.StreamHandler',
                        'formatter': 'debug'}},
                 'root': {
                    'handlers': ['console'],
                    'level': 'WARN'},
                 'loggers': {
                    "django.db": {"level": "WARN"}}})
    app_config = AppConfig(NAME, sys.modules['__main__'])
    apps.populate([app_config])
    django.setup()
    original_new_func = ModelBase.__new__

    @staticmethod
    def patched_new(cls, name, bases, attrs):
        if 'Meta' not in attrs:
            class Meta:
                app_label = NAME
            attrs['Meta'] = Meta
        return original_new_func(cls, name, bases, attrs)
    ModelBase.__new__ = patched_new


def syncdb(model):
    """ Standard syncdb expects models to be in reliable locations.

    Based on https://github.com/django/django/blob/1.9.3
    /django/core/management/commands/migrate.py#L285
    """
    connection = connections[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS]
    with connection.schema_editor() as editor:
        editor.create_model(model)

main()

Answer 3

How about using try/except blocks?

def get_profile_or_none(user, profile_cls):

    try:
        profile = getattr(user, profile_cls.__name__.lower())
    except profile_cls.DoesNotExist:
        profile = None

    return profile

Then, use like this!

u = request.user
if get_profile_or_none(u, Type1Profile) is not None:
    # do something
elif get_profile_or_none(u, Type2Profile) is not None:
    # do something else
else:
    # d'oh!

I suppose you could use this as a generic function to get any reverse OneToOne instance, given an originating class (here: your profile classes) and a related instance (here: request.user).

Answer 4

I am using a combination of has_attr and is None:

class DriverLocation(models.Model):
    driver = models.OneToOneField(Driver, related_name='location', on_delete=models.CASCADE)

class Driver(models.Model):
    pass

    @property
    def has_location(self):
        return not hasattr(self, "location") or self.location is None

Answer 5

One of the smart approaches will be to add custom field OneToOneOrNoneField and use it [works for Django >=1.9]

from django.db.models.fields.related_descriptors import ReverseOneToOneDescriptor
from django.core.exceptions import ObjectDoesNotExist
from django.db import models


class SingleRelatedObjectDescriptorReturnsNone(ReverseOneToOneDescriptor):
    def __get__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        try:
            return super().__get__(*args, **kwargs)
        except ObjectDoesNotExist:
            return None


class OneToOneOrNoneField(models.OneToOneField):
    """A OneToOneField that returns None if the related object doesn't exist"""
    related_accessor_class = SingleRelatedObjectDescriptorReturnsNone

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        kwargs.setdefault('null', True)
        kwargs.setdefault('blank', True)
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)

Implementation

class Restaurant(models.Model):  # The class where the one-to-one originates
    place = OneToOneOrNoneField(Place)
    serves_hot_dogs = models.BooleanField()
    serves_pizza = models.BooleanField()

Usage

r = Restaurant(serves_hot_dogs=True, serves_pizza=False)
r.place  # will return None

Answer 6

in case you have the Model

class UserProfile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, unique=True)

And you just need to know for any User that UserProfile exists/or not - the most efficient way from the database point of view to use exists query.

Exists query will return just boolean, rather than reverse attribute access like hasattr(request.user, 'type1profile') - which will generate get query and return full object representation

To do it - you need to add a property to the User model

class User(AbstractBaseUser)

@property
def has_profile():
    return UserProfile.objects.filter(user=self.pk).exists()