django - comparing old and new field value before saving

Question

I have a django model, and I need to compare old and new values of field BEFORE saving.

I've tried the save() inheritence, and pre_save signal. It was triggered correctly, but I can't find the list of actualy changed fields and can't compare old and new values. There is a way? I need it for optimization of presave actions.

Thank you!

Answer 1

There is very simple django way for doing it.

"Memorise" the values in model init like this:

def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
    super(MyClass, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
    self.initial_parametername = self.parametername
    ---
    self.initial_parameternameX = self.parameternameX

Real life example:

At class:

def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
    super(MyClass, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
    self.__important_fields = ['target_type', 'target_id', 'target_object', 'number', 'chain', 'expiration_date']
    for field in self.__important_fields:
        setattr(self, '__original_%s' % field, getattr(self, field))

def has_changed(self):
    for field in self.__important_fields:
        orig = '__original_%s' % field
        if getattr(self, orig) != getattr(self, field):
            return True
    return False

And then in modelform save method:

def save(self, force_insert=False, force_update=False, commit=True):
    # Prep the data
    obj = super(MyClassForm, self).save(commit=False)

    if obj.has_changed():

        # If we're down with commitment, save this shit
        if commit:
            obj.save(force_insert=True)

    return obj

Answer 2

It is better to do this at ModelForm level.

There you get all the Data that you need for comparison in save method:

1. self.data : Actual Data passed to the Form.
2. self.cleaned_data : Data cleaned after validations, Contains Data eligible to be saved in the Model
3. self.changed_data : List of Fields which have changed. This will be empty if nothing has changed

If you want to do this at Model level then you can follow the method specified in Odif's answer.

Answer 3

Also you can use FieldTracker from django-model-utils for this:

1. Just add tracker field to your model:

   tracker = FieldTracker()
   

2. Now in pre_save and post_save you can use:

   instance.tracker.previous('modelfield')     # get the previous value
   instance.tracker.has_changed('modelfield')  # just check if it is changed
   

Answer 4

Here is an app that gives you access to previous and current value of a field right before model will be saved: django-smartfields

Here is how this problem can be solved in a nice declarative may:

from django.db import models
from smartfields import fields, processors
from smartfields.dependencies import Dependency

class ConditionalProcessor(processors.BaseProcessor):

    def process(self, value, stashed_value=None, **kwargs):
        if value != stashed_value:
            # do any necessary modifications to new value
            value = ... 
        return value

class MyModel(models.Model):
    my_field = fields.CharField(max_length=10, dependencies=[
        Dependency(processor=ConditionalProcessor())
    ])

Moreover, this processor will be invoked, only in case that field's value was replaced

Answer 5

My use case for this was that I needed to set a denormalized value in the model whenever some field changed its value. However, as the field being monitored was a m2m relation, I didn't want to have to do that DB lookup whenever save was called in order to check whether the denormalized field needed updating. So, instead I wrote this little mixin (using @Odif Yitsaeb's answer as inspiration) in order to only update the denormalized field when necessary.

class HasChangedMixin(object):
    """ this mixin gives subclasses the ability to set fields for which they want to monitor if the field value changes """
    monitor_fields = []

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(HasChangedMixin, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.field_trackers = {}

    def __setattr__(self, key, value):
        super(HasChangedMixin, self).__setattr__(key, value)
        if key in self.monitor_fields and key not in self.field_trackers:
            self.field_trackers[key] = value

    def changed_fields(self):
        """
        :return: `list` of `str` the names of all monitor_fields which have changed
        """
        changed_fields = []
        for field, initial_field_val in self.field_trackers.items():
            if getattr(self, field) != initial_field_val:
                changed_fields.append(field)

        return changed_fields

Answer 6

I agree with Sahil that it is better and easier to do this with ModelForm. However, you would customize the ModelForm's clean method and perform validation there. In my case, I wanted to prevent updates to a model's instance if a field on the model is set.

My code looked like this:

from django.forms import ModelForm

class ExampleForm(ModelForm):
    def clean(self):
        cleaned_data = super(ExampleForm, self).clean()
        if self.instance.field:
            raise Exception
        return cleaned_data

Answer 7

Something like this also works:

class MyModel(models.Model):
    my_field = fields.IntegerField()

    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
       # Compare old vs new
       if self.pk:
           obj = MyModel.objects.values('my_value').get(pk=self.pk)
           if obj['my_value'] != self.my_value:
               # Do stuff...
               pass
       super().save(*args, **kwargs)