Django model inheritance using single DB table - problems accessing subclass from superclass

Question

I am developing a Django application using Oracle with no modifications to DB schema allowed. I have one table in which all Thesis exist, which can be seperated in two disjoint sets: PhdThesis and BscMscThesis. I have also Review model, which links to Thesis DB table and doesn't care whether it is PhdThesis or BscMscThesis, so I would like to keep Thesis as abstract = False class.

class Thesis(models.Model):
    # Primary key  has to be specified explicite here for inheritance to work?
    id = models.DecimalField(db_column="ID", max_digits=10, decimal_places=0, primary_key=True)
    class Meta:
        db_table = "DZ_PRACE_CERT"
        managed = False

class Person(models.Model):
    class Meta:
        db_table = "MV_OSOBY"
        managed = False


class BscMscThesisManager(models.Manager):
    def get_query_set(self):
        return super(BscMscThesisManager, self).get_query_set().filter(personbscmscdiploma__isnull=False)

class BscMscThesis(Thesis):
    # needed for inheritance?
    thesis = models.OneToOneField(Thesis, db_column="ID", primary_key=True, parent_link=True)
    authors = models.ManyToManyField(Person, through="PersonBscMscDiploma", related_name='author_of_bsc_msc_theses')
    objects = BscMscThesisManager()

    class Meta:
        db_table = "DZ_PRACE_CERT"
        managed = False

class PersonBscMscDiploma(models.Model):
    bsc_msc_thesis = models.ForeignKey(BscMscThesis, db_column="PRC_CERT_ID")


class PhdThesisManager(models.Manager):
    def get_query_set(self):
        return super(PhdThesisManager, self).get_query_set().filter(personphddiploma__isnull=False)

class PhdThesis(Thesis):
    # needed for inheritance?
    thesis = models.OneToOneField(Thesis, db_column="ID", primary_key=True, parent_link=True)
    authors = models.ManyToManyField(Person, through="PersonPhdDiploma", related_name='author_of_phd_theses')
    objects = PhdThesisManager()

    class Meta:
        db_table = "DZ_PRACE_CERT"
        managed = False

class PersonPhdDiploma(models.Model):
    phd_thesis = models.ForeignKey(PhdThesis, db_column="PRC_CERT_ID")

The problem I encountered is:

>>> Thesis.objects.all()[0].phdthesis
<PhdThesis: Uniwersytecki System Obsługi Studiów. Parametryzowane filtry>
>>> Thesis.objects.all()[0].bscmscthesis
<BscMscThesis: Uniwersytecki System Obsługi Studiów. Parametryzowane filtry>
>>> Thesis.objects.all()[0].phdthesis.authors.all()
[]
>>> Thesis.objects.all()[0].bscmscthesis.authors.all()
[<Person: Jan1912 Kowalski1912>]
>>> Thesis.objects.all()[0].id
Decimal('903')
>>> BscMscThesis.objects.get(id=903)
<BscMscThesis: Uniwersytecki System Obsługi Studiów. Parametryzowane filtry>
>>> PhdThesis.objects.get(id=903)
DoesNotExist: PhdThesis matching query does not exist.

PhdThesis.objects.all() and BscMscThesis.objects.all() return two disjoint sets as intended.

Why does not Thesis.objects.all()[0].phdthesis return None or DoesNotExist in above example? What can I do to get such behaviour?

You've got an extra underscore in your get_queryset definitions. See docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.1/topics/db/managers/…. This may or may not be the cause of your issue but the managers would not subset correctly with the current code. — davidjb
– davidjb, Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 7:55

mczers · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-10 13:28:05Z

1

It seems there is no easy way for Django to do this. I ended up implementing methods like is_phd() and is_bsc_msc() and using them like this:

def get_absolute_url(self):
    if self.is_phd():
        return self.phdthesis.get_absolute_url()
    else:
        return self.bscmscthesis.get_absolute_url()

answered Aug 10, 2011 at 13:28

mczers

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