django queryset - searching for firstname and lastname

Question

i have a django app that retrieve all subjects from a single table of users. i've also implemented an input search form, this is the query performed:

all_soggs =     Entity.objects.filter(lastname__istartswith=request.GET['query_term']).order_by('lastname')
if(all_soggs.count()==0):
    all_soggs = Entity.objects.filter(firstname__istartswith=request.GET['query_term']).order_by('firstname')

as you can see the query first search for matching items by lastname, and then by firstname. this works until i insert the complete name 'firstaname lastname' or 'lastname firstname', in this case there's no results. how can i modify the query to make a better search?

thanks - luke

Answer 1

Copy/paste from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/17361729/1297812

from django.db.models import Q 

def find_user_by_name(query_name):
   qs = User.objects.all()
   for term in query_name.split():
     qs = qs.filter( Q(first_name__icontains = term) | Q(last_name__icontains = term))
   return qs