What makes “name” special. Why not “label”, “title”, “code”, or any number of
other things that people use internally?
It also seems like you could solve this very easily by creating a stub model:
from django.db import models
class MyModel(models.Model):
class Meta:
abstract = True
def __unicode__(self):
return self.name
This has the advantage of your not having to repeat yourself often (and it
gives you another place to put your own particular things which you
consistently practice), while not becoming opinionated about a naming scheme
across the entire framework.
Best Regards,
Luke Sneeringer
P. S. A place where I *would* love to see a better Django default would be in
the __repr__ method.
On Jul 10, 2013, at 9:46 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Have you ever quickly set up a model, ran syncdb, and added a few sample
> objects in the admin to only see a bunch of "MyModel object"s in the
> changelist? I always forget to add a __unicode__()/__str__() method on my
> models.
>
> I ran "git grep -1 __unicode__" on some of my django projects and noticed a
> lot of repeated code. In fact, it seems that in about a _third_ of all my
> cases, I'm just returning self.name, or returning self.name would have been a
> good default. I looked at a few 3rd party apps for comparison and found
> similar results, though not for every app.
>
> IMHO, returning self.name (if the field or property exists) is a sensible
> default for __unicode__. We can still return "MyModel object" if there's no
> "name" attribute. You'll still end up adding your own __unicode__ method much
> of the time, just like you always have.
>
> Yes, it's "magic", but we can document it.
> Yes, it's a little more confusing, but we don't have to explain it during the
> tutorial.
> Yes, it's backwards incompatible, but only in rare cases should it be a
> problem.
> Yes, it could look like any Model without a "name" field is "wrong", but it's
> not.
> Yes, "title" is also very popular, but name is better. :)
>
> It has the effect of being a little more friendly in many cases, and can
> result in more DRY code.
>
> What do your __unicode__/__str__ methods look like? Is this a bad idea?
>
> Thanks,
> Collin
>
>
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