How to check if the object has property in view in Django?

Question

I am trying to get the documents property in a general function, but a few models may not have the documents attribute. Is there any way to first check if a model has the documents property, and then conditionally run code?

if self.model has property documents:
    context['documents'] = self.get_object().documents.()

I have generic view which displays all the models in single template. Initially i didn't have any documents but now few of them has documents attached. so i was thinking if there is some way to check othwise , i need to define the new view with 90% same code. For hackish solution i have made a function with try and except so that i don't get any error in site but was looking for proper way — Mirage, Oct 16 '12 at 03:37
Why don't you have the model tell which view it should use, with a sane default? — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Oct 16 '12 at 03:54

score 52 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:29

52

You can use hasattr() to check to see if model has the documents property.

if hasattr(self.model, 'documents'):
    doStuff(self.model.documents)

However, this answer points out that some people feel the "easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" approach is better practice.

try:
    doStuff(self.model.documents)
except AttributeError:
    otherStuff()

edited May 23 '17 at 10:29

Community

1
1

answered Oct 16 '12 at 03:57

kaezarrex

1,246
11
8

How to check if the object has property in view in Django?

1 Answers1