I have first_name, last_name & alias (optional) which I need to search for. So, I need a query to give me all the names that have an alias set.
Only if I could do:
Name.objects.filter(alias!="")
So, what is the equivalent to the above?
You could do this:
Name.objects.exclude(alias__isnull=True)
If you need to exclude null values and empty strings, the preferred way to do so is to chain together the conditions like so:
Name.objects.exclude(alias__isnull=True).exclude(alias__exact="")
Chaining these methods together basically checks each condition independently: in the above example, we exclude rows where alias is either null or an empty string, so you get all Name objects that have a not-null, not-empty alias field. The generated SQL would look something like:
SELECT * FROM Name WHERE alias IS NOT NULL AND alias != ""
You can also pass multiple arguments to a single call to exclude, which would ensure that only objects that meet every condition get excluded:
Name.objects.exclude(some_field=True, other_field=True)
Here, rows in which some_field and other_field are true get excluded, so we get all rows where both fields are not true. The generated SQL code would look a little like this:
SELECT * FROM Name WHERE NOT (some_field = TRUE AND other_field = TRUE)
Alternatively, if your logic is more complex than that, you could use Django’s Q objects:
from django.db.models import Q
Name.objects.exclude(Q(alias__isnull=True) | Q(alias__exact=""))
For more info see this page and this page in the Django docs.
As an aside: My SQL examples are just an analogy–the actual generated SQL code will probably look different. You’ll get a deeper understanding of how Django queries work by actually looking at the SQL they generate.
Name.objects.filter(alias__gt="",alias__isnull=False)
Firstly, the Django docs strongly recommend not using NULL values for string-based fields such as CharField or TextField. Read the documentation for the explanation:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/fields/#null
Solution:
You can also chain together methods on QuerySets, I think. Try this:
Name.objects.exclude(alias__isnull=True).exclude(alias="")
That should give you the set you’re looking for.
From Django 1.8,
from django.db.models.functions import Length
Name.objects.annotate(alias_length=Length('alias')).filter(alias_length__gt=0)
1. When using exclude, keep the following in mind to avoid common mistakes:
Should not add multiple conditions into an exclude() block like filter(). To exclude multiple conditions, you should use multiple exclude().
Example: (NOT a AND NOT b)
Entry.objects.exclude(title="").exclude(headline="")
equal to
SELECT... WHERE NOT title="" AND NOT headline=""
======================================================
2. Only use multiple when you really know about it:
Example: NOT (a AND b)
Entry.objects.exclude(title="", headline="")
equal to
SELECT.. WHERE NOT (title="" AND headline="")
You can simply do this:
Name.objects.exclude(alias="").exclude(alias=None)
It’s really just that simple. filter is used to match and exclude is to match everything but what it specifies. This would evaluate into SQL as NOT alias="" AND alias IS NOT NULL.
Another approach using a generic isempty lookup, that can be used with any field.
It can also be used by django rest_framework or other apps that use django lookups:
from distutils.util import strtobool
from django.db.models import Field
from django.db.models.lookups import BuiltinLookup
@Field.register_lookup
class IsEmpty(BuiltinLookup):
lookup_name="isempty"
prepare_rhs = False
def as_sql(self, compiler, connection):
sql, params = compiler.compile(self.lhs)
condition = self.rhs if isinstance(self.rhs, bool) else bool(strtobool(self.rhs))
if condition:
return "%s IS NULL or %s=""" % (sql, sql), params
else:
return "%s <> ''" % sql, params
You can then use it like this:
Name.objects.filter(alias__isempty=False)
this is another simple way to do it .
Name.objects.exclude(alias=None)