A version of this question has been asked here several times but none of the answers provided solve my exact problem.
I'm trying to bulk_create a batch of objects of a model with a ManyToMany field.
In this case, the ManyToMany field refers to the same model, though I'd also be interested in the general case.
Let's say this is my model:
class Person(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=20, blank=True, null=True)
friends = models.ManyToMany("self", related_name="friends_with", null=True)
After bulk_creating a large number of Person objects, I want to add the information who's friends with whom within this group.
Is there a more efficient way to go about this than looping through each new Person and calling .set(friend_pks) or .add(*friend_pks)?
I.e., an analogue of bulk_update.
I've achieved some speed-up by wrapping the loop into with transaction.atomic() (from this answer) but it's still quite slow.
Okay, my post was premature -- it seems that this answers the question.
The key is to bulk_create the through models. In this example:
friends_relation_1 = Person.friends.through(from_person_id=1, to_person_id=2)
friends_relation_2 = Person.friends.through(from_person_id=2, to_person_id=8)
Person.friends.through.objects.bulk_create([friends_relation_1, friends_relation_2, ...])