django : related_name and related_query_name

This post is about two Django ForeignKey parameters

related_name
related_query_name

See an example below

class Cluster(models.Model):
	_id = models.UUIDField(unique=True, null=False, default=uuid.uuid1)
	name = models.CharField(max_length=200, unique=True, null=False)

class Node(models.Model):
	_id = models.UUIDField(unique=True, null=False, default=uuid.uuid1)
	name = models.CharField(max_length=200, unique=True, null=False)
	cluster = models.ForeignKey(
		Cluster,
		on_delete=models.PROTECT,
		to_field='_id',
		db_constraint=False
	)

We did not set relatd_name and related_query_name here, so django will use the default. Related_name will be node_set (mode name with a _set) and related_query_name will be node(model name).

The value of the two parameter is not important. What we care about is the usage of this two parameters.

To discuss that, we need to find a way to call this two types of models. Here we call the model with foreign key 'slave_model' and the other model 'master_model'.

The related_name is used for the master_model object to refer back to slave_models. For example:

>>> for node_obj in  c1.node_set.all():
...     print(node_obj.cluster_id)
...
26f0655e-bf2b-11e8-8a30-f000ac192ced
26f0655e-bf2b-11e8-8a30-f000ac192ced
>>> c1._id
UUID('26f0655e-bf2b-11e8-8a30-f000ac192ced')

The c1 is a master_model object. The related_name is now one attribute of it. With this attr, master_model object can refer back to slave_models.

The related_query_name usually used in two scenario.

First, related_query_name used in filter. Lets see an example

Cluster.objects.filter(key=value)

Usually, the key should be column of cluster. With related_query_name , the key could be column of node. For example:

>>> Cluster.objects.filter(node__name=n1.name)
<QuerySet [<Cluster: Cluster object (4)>]>

Please note that the node is the related_query_name and we always add two "_" between related_query_name and column name

Second usage is

Cluster.objects.filter(node__name=n1.name).values('column', 'column')

Normally, you can specify the column of cluster to get the target column you want. With related_query_name ， you can specify the column of node (slave_model).

>>> Cluster.objects.filter(node__name=n1.name).values('name', 'node__name', 'node__pk')
<QuerySet [{'name': 'c1', 'node__name': 'n1', 'node__pk': 5}]>