Django: Why create a OneToOne to UserProfile instead of subclassing auth.User?

Question

Note: If you are tempted to \'answer\' this question by telling me that you don\'t like django.contrib.auth, please move on. That will not be helpful. I am well aware of t

Answer 1

Is it more efficient and effective to inherit the User model? I don't see why, but I'd like to read your arguments. IMNSHO, model inheritance has always been a pain.

Yet, this may not answer your question, but I'm quite satisfied with the solution proposed by Will Hardy in this snippet. By taking advantage of signals, it automatically creates a new user profile for every new user.

The link is unlikely to disappear, but here's my slightly different version of his code:

from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.db import models
from django.db.models.signals import post_save
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

class AuthUserProfileModelBase(models.base.ModelBase):
    # _prepare is not part of the public API and may change
    def _prepare(self):
        super(AuthUserProfileModelBase, self)._prepare()
        def on_save(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
            if created:
                self.objects.create(user=instance)
        # Automatically link profile when a new user is created
        post_save.connect(on_save, sender=User, weak=False)

# Every profile model must inherit this class
class AuthUserProfileModel(models.Model):
    class Meta:
        abstract = True
    __metaclass__ = AuthUserProfileModelBase
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, db_column='auth_user_id',
        primary_key=True, parent_link=True)

# The actual profile model
class Profile(AuthUserProfileModel):
    class Meta:
        app_label = 'some_app_label'
        db_table = 'auth_user_profile'
        managed = True
    language = models.CharField(_('language'), max_length=5, default='en')

Of course, any credit goes to Will Hardy.