conversion of datetime Field to string in django queryset.values_list()

Question

I have a queryset like:

qs = MyModel.objects.filter(name=\'me\').values_list(\'activation_date\')

here activation_date is

Answer 1

Very surprised to see that no one suggested the cast to a simple TextField (note, I'm using Postgres so I can't confirm for other RDBMSes):

queryset = FooBarModel.objects.values(my_datetime=Cast('some_datetime_field', TextField()))
foo_bar = queryset.first()
foo_bar['my_datetime']
>>> u'2019-10-03 17:59:37.979578+00'

It similarly also works fine for nested fields:

queryset = FooBarModel.objects.values(Cast('baz__some_datetime_field', TextField()))

Alternatively, a custom Func can also be used (also specific to Postgres here, but can be modified for any other RDBMS):

class FullDateTimeCast(Func):
   """
   Coerce an expression to a new field type.
   """
   function = 'TO_CHAR'
   template = '%(function)s(%(expressions)s, \'FMDay, Month DD, YYYY at HH12:MI:SS AM\')'

queryset = FooBarModel.objects.values(my_datetime=FullDateTimeCast('some_datetime_field', TextField()))
foo_bar = queryset.first()
foo_bar['my_datetime']
>>> u' Thursday, October 03, 2019 at 17:59:37 PM'