django - how to reuse a template for nearly identical models?

Question

Still fairly new to django and python.

I've defined two nearly identical models that inherit from a base class:

class addressbook(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)

class company(addressbook):
    address = models.CharField(max_length=50)

class contact(addressbook):
    telephone - models.CharField(max_length=30)

I want to do very similar things with company and contact objects. However in my templates it looks like I need to use separate templates for each object since to access the members in the object I have to use something like

{{ blah.name }} {{ blah.address}}

in one but

{{ blah.name }} {{ blah.telephone}} 

in the other.

All this repetition makes me suspicious. Is there some python or django template syntax that would allow me to reuse a single template (with some sort of built in intelligence) with both models?

Thanks for your help! W.

Answer 1

If you create a property in your models that indicates the specific field of interest for each type, that would let you use one variable in a template. Example:

class addressbook(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)

class company(addressbook):
    address = models.CharField(max_length=50)

    @property
    def display_field(self):
        return self.address

class contact(addressbook):
    telephone = models.CharField(max_length=30)

    @property
    def display_field(self):
        return self.telephone

Now in your template you can use {{ blah.display_field }} and it will print the value you want, depending on the object type.