django filter field locator challenges

Question

If my POST data from a form submission = "John Doe", and I'm trying to match it to an object in this model:

class Person(models.Model):
    first_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    last_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)

How do I do that?

I've tried:

person = Person.objects.filter(last_name__in=post_data,first_name__in=post_data)

It doesn't work because the "__in" field locator is looking for a list.

I've tried:

    person = Person.objects.filter(last_name__in=list(post_data),first_name__in=list(post_data))

It doesn't work because I've created a one-item list with the item being "John Doe", which doesn't match either first_name or last_name in a person object.

Please help out a beginner. Thanks!

Answer 1

You may use something like this:

    from django.db.models import Q
    ...
    for w in post_data.split():
      qs = qs.filter(Q(first_name__icontains=w)|Q(last_name__icontains=w))

It splits the input string, and matches every word against first_name or last_name.