How to allow generic filtering with djangorestframework on all fields?

Question

My packages:

• djangorestframework==3.2.5
• django-filter==0.11.0
• djangorestframework-filters==0.5.0

I'm using djangorestframework to expose my models as a restful api. To make my and the frontend dev's life easier I want to allow any filter lookup on any model field. But as far as I could see neither of the packages supports such generic filtering out of the box. I can use a AllLookupsFilter but still need to create a filterset class per model and specify each field.

Is there a generic approach to allow filtering on all models and all fields?

Answer 1

I created a little helper function that creates the filterset on-the-fly based on the queryset model of the modelviewset. It adds an AllLookupFilter for each field in the model.

from rest_framework import viewsets
import rest_framework_filters as filters


def create_universal_filter(klass):
    """Creates filterset class with all lookups  for all fields of given class"""
    field_filters = dict((f, filters.ALL_LOOKUPS) 
                    for f in klass._meta.get_all_field_names())

    class MyFilter(filters.FilterSet):
        class Meta:
            model = klass
            fields = field_filters
    return MyFilter


class GenericFilterModelViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    """Allows all lookups on all fields"""
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.filter_class = create_universal_filter(self.queryset.model)

Then I let the modelviewsets where I want to allow generic filtering inherit from it:

class DerivateGroupViewSet(GenericFilterModelViewSet):
    queryset = models.DerivateGroup.objects.all()
    serializer_class = serializers.DerivateGroupSerializer