I'm working on my first real Django project after years of PHP programming, and I am running into a problem with my models. First, I noticed that I was copying and pasting code between the models, and being a diligent OO programmer I decided to make a parent class that the other models could inherit from:
class Common(model.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
date_created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
date_modified = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
def __unicode__(self):
return self.name
class Meta:
abstract=True
So far so good. Now all my other models extend "Common" and have names and dates like I want. However, I have a class for "Categories" were the name has to be unique. I assume there should be a relatively simple way for me to access the name attribute from Common and make it unique. However, the different methods I have tried to use have all failed. For example:
class Category(Common):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
self.name.unique=True
Causes the Django admin page to spit up the error "Caught an exception while rendering: 'Category' object has no attribute 'name'
Can someone point me in the right direction?
No, Django doesn't allow that.
See the docs: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.1/topics/db/models/#field-name-hiding-is-not-permitted
Also answered in other questions like: In Django - Model Inheritance - Does it allow you to override a parent model's attribute?