Django '<object> matching query does not exist' when I can see it in the database

Question

My model looks like this:

class Staff(models.Model):
    StaffNumber = models.CharField(max_length=20,primary_key=True)
    NameFirst = models.CharField(max_length=30,blank=True,null=True)
    NameLast = models.CharField(max_length=30)
    SchoolID = models.CharField(max_length=10,blank=True,null=True)
    AutocompleteName = models.CharField(max_length=100, blank=True,null=True)

I'm using MySQL, in case that matters.

From the manage.py shell:

root@django:/var/www/django-sites/apps# python manage.py shell
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Jan 20 2010, 21:48:48)
[GCC 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu3)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(InteractiveConsole)
>>> from disciplineform.models import Staff
>>> s = Staff.objects.all()
>>> len(s)
406

So I know there are 406 "Staff" objects in there. I can also see them in the database. I check one of the values:

>>> s[0].NameFirst
u'"ANDREA"'

That also matches what I see in the database. Now I try to 'get' this object.

>>> a = Staff.objects.get(NameFirst='ANDREA')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/django/db/models/manager.py", line 93, in get
    return self.get_query_set().get(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/django/db/models/query.py", line 309, in get
    % self.model._meta.object_name)
DoesNotExist: Staff matching query does not exist.

Huh? This is happening for all the values of all the columns I've tested. I'm getting the same result in my view.py code.

I'm obviously doing something dumb. What is it?

Hank Gay · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-16 12:57:16Z

8

Try

a = Staff.objects.get(NameFirst=u'"ANDREA"')

The u tells Python/Django it's a Unicode string, not a plain old str, and in your s[0].NameFirst sample, it's showing the value as containing double quotes.

answered Mar 16, 2010 at 12:57

Hank Gay

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3 Comments

ScottOrwig Over a year ago

It was the quotes! That was the dumb thing I was doing. All the values in the database were surrounded by double quotes. I don't even see quotes anymore so I didn't notice. For the record, I tried including the quotes without the Unicode specification and it still worked. Thanks!

Hank Gay Over a year ago

You're welcome. I didn't really think it was the Unicode issue, since Django has been uniformly awesome about Unicode handling, but I don't use MySQL so I wanted to make sure all my bases were covered.

Mc- Over a year ago

In my case it was a variable so I used unicode(variable_name).

fourk · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-16 10:45:10Z

2

I ran into the same issue, here's the solution:

from django.db import reset_queries, close_connection
close_connection()
reset_queries()

answered Dec 16, 2010 at 10:45

fourk

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Comments

Ihor Pomaranskyy · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-18 06:04:07Z

2

Name was stored in database with an extra redundant doublequotes. So, if you want to catch that record, correct code is:

a = Staff.objects.get(NameFirst='"ANDREA"')

…instead of:

a = Staff.objects.get(NameFirst='ANDREA')

If you can't be sure, that query will return result, you must to add exception handling, something like that:

try:
    a = Staff.objects.get(NameFirst='"ANDREA"')
except Exception:
    a = None

answered Jan 18, 2012 at 6:04

Ihor Pomaranskyy

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Comments

Brant · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-16 12:55:21Z

0

I have run into similar issues before.

I'm not entirely sure why but the raw 'get' tends to give me problems. So, I usually end up using 'filter' instead, then grabbing the first result.

a = Staff.objects.filter(NameFirst='ANDREA')
result = a[0]

answered Mar 16, 2010 at 12:55

Brant

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Steven · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-19 15:25:18Z

-2

A simliar thing happened to me. I was able to solve it by putting something in the db for the query to return.

This isn't exactly like yours, but it was the first hit on Google, so I thought I'd share.

answered Jun 19, 2012 at 15:25

Steven

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