Django - trying to access User model column field from a view

[Henry Versemann]

I currently using Python 2.7.7 and Django 1.7 as I build a new application.

I need to retrieve an entire User object from the authentication User Model, but when I do the following:

userobj = User.objects.get(username=myuser)

all I'm getting returned is just the same username value (contained in myuser) that I'm trying to use, to get the complete associated User object.

So my question is what am I doing wrong?

Can't I use a regular query on the User model (that I get from this import: "from django.contrib.auth.models import User" ) the same way that I would be able to use on one of my application's models?

This is very frustrating and while I'm comfortable with using Django apparently I still have a lot to learn about it.

Thanks for the help.

[Babatunde Akinyanmi]

userobj = User.objects.get(username=myuser)

Will get you a User object or throw an error if it can't find anything. The string representation of the User object is the string contained its username field.

Try this to confirm:
type(userobj)

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[Henry Versemann]

I tried what you suggested and printed from the view what the type command returned and it looks like this:

type(userobj)=(<class 'django.contrib.auth.models.User'>)

so that part of it does seem to be working. So why can't I see the other values within the object then displayed in normal object notation instead of just seeing this:

userobj=(hvadmin)

when I print out a string representation of the User object? I had expected to see a lot of different fields like "id", "username",  "first_name", "last_name", "email", "password", "groups",  "user_permissions", "is_staff", "is_active", "is_superuser", "last_login", and "date_joined"

which are just about all of the columns defined for the User model according to the documentation. 

So how do I get to that data then if I can't see it this way?

Thanks for the help.

[James Schneider]

Not sure what you mean. The User model will act just like any other model.

$ python manage.py shell

>>> from django.contrib.auth.models import User

>>> 

>>> userobj = User.objects.get(username='jrschneider')

>>> 

>>> userobj

<User: jrschneider>

>>> 

>>> type(userobj)

<class 'django.contrib.auth.models.User'>

>>> 

>>> userobj.username

u'jrschneider'

>>> 

>>> userobj.is_staff

True

>>> 

>>> userobj.is_superuser

True

>>> 

>>> dir(userobj)

['DoesNotExist', 'Meta', 'MultipleObjectsReturned', 'REQUIRED_FIELDS', 'USERNAME_FIELD', '__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__getattribute__', '__hash__', '__init__', u'__module__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', '__unicode__', '__weakref__', '_base_manager', '_default_manager', '_deferred', '_do_insert', '_do_update', '_get_FIELD_display', '_get_next_or_previous_by_FIELD', '_get_next_or_previous_in_order', '_get_pk_val', '_get_unique_checks', '_meta', '_perform_date_checks', '_perform_unique_checks', '_save_parents', '_save_table', '_set_pk_val', '_state', 'check_password', 'clean', 'clean_fields', 'date_error_message', 'date_joined', 'delete', 'email', 'email_user', 'first_name', 'full_clean', 'get_absolute_url', 'get_all_permissions', 'get_full_name', 'get_group_permissions', 'get_next_by_date_joined', 'get_next_by_last_login', 'get_previous_by_date_joined', 'get_previous_by_last_login', 'get_profile', 'get_short_name', 'get_username', 'groups', 'has_module_perms', 'has_perm', 'has_perms', 'has_usable_password', 'id', 'is_active', 'is_anonymous', 'is_authenticated', 'is_staff', 'is_superuser', 'last_login', 'last_name', 'natural_key', 'objects', 'password', 'pk', 'prepare_database_save', 'save', 'save_base', 'serializable_value', 'set_password', 'set_unusable_password', 'unique_error_message', 'user_permissions', 'username', 'validate_unique']

>>> 

>>> repr(userobj)

'<User: jrschneider>'

>>> print userobj

jrschneider

>>> 

>>> for i in dir(userobj):

...     if not i.startswith('_'):

...         print i

... 

DoesNotExist

Meta

MultipleObjectsReturned

REQUIRED_FIELDS

USERNAME_FIELD

check_password

clean

clean_fields

date_error_message

date_joined

delete

email

email_user

first_name

full_clean

get_absolute_url

get_all_permissions

get_full_name

get_group_permissions

get_next_by_date_joined

get_next_by_last_login

get_previous_by_date_joined

get_previous_by_last_login

get_profile

get_short_name

get_username

groups

has_module_perms

has_perm

has_perms

has_usable_password

id

is_active

is_anonymous

is_authenticated

is_staff

is_superuser

last_login

last_name

natural_key

objects

password

pk

prepare_database_save

save

save_base

serializable_value

set_password

set_unusable_password

unique_error_message

user_permissions

username

validate_unique

>>> 

>>> vars(userobj)

{'username': u'jrschneider', 'first_name': u'', 'last_name': u'', 'is_active': True, '_state': <django.db.models.base.ModelState object at 0x3b6c410>, 'email': u'', 'is_superuser': True, 'is_staff': True, 'last_login': datetime.datetime(2014, 11, 14, 15, 57, 27, 58040, tzinfo=<UTC>), 'password': u'pbkdf2_sha256$12000$5zwVBOTE9oft$C25SqN0TztFt6qbonqS0NVNu1WIsVUi+yuNxywMbTZA=', 'id': 1, 'date_joined': datetime.datetime(2014, 8, 8, 0, 18, 58, 7156, tzinfo=<UTC>)}

>>> 

>>> import pprint

>>> pprint.pprint(vars(userobj))

{'_state': <django.db.models.base.ModelState object at 0x3b6c410>,

 'date_joined': datetime.datetime(2014, 8, 8, 0, 18, 58, 7156, tzinfo=<UTC>),

 'email': u'',

 'first_name': u'',

 'id': 1,

 'is_active': True,

 'is_staff': True,

 'is_superuser': True,

 'last_login': datetime.datetime(2014, 11, 14, 15, 57, 27, 58040, tzinfo=<UTC>),

 'last_name': u'',

 'password': u'pbkdf2_sha256$12000$5zwVBOTE9oft$C25SqN0TztFt6qbonqS0NVNu1WIsVUi+yuNxywMbTZA=',

 'username': u'jrschneider'}

>>> 

The output of 'print userobj' is controlled by the __str__() method of the User model (inherited from AbstractBaseUser), and only returns the username. I showed a couple of different ways to enumerate the attributes and methods available on a User object via a for loop using the dir() function, and the vars() function, the latter of which is likely what you want, and will produce a consistent output rather than relying on repr() or print() (assuming the magic enumeration methods are available, which should be true for all Django models). 

For those concerned, the password field is a hash of a throwaway password on a non-Internet available development system.

HTH,

-James

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[Babatunde Akinyanmi]

James said it all.
I'll just add that you really need to brush up on your python. Django is pure python. I've all been there before.

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[Henry Versemann]

Thanks James. You were right and its all there.

Thanks again.

Henry