Creating a custom signal for when a user activates his account

Question

I am trying to create a custom signal for when the field auth_user.is_active becomes 1. I looked at Django's docs on signals, but was having trouble understanding how to implement custom signals.

When a user account becomes active, I want to execute the following function:

def new_user(sender, **kwargs)
    profile = User.objects.get(id=user_id).get_profile()
    return RecentActivity(content_object=profile, event_type=1, timestamp=datetime.datetime.now())

How would I do this. And also, what is the advantage of using signals over just doing the database insert directly? Thank you.

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 30 '11 at 10:39

2

Here is what I did:

# in models.py
@receiver(pre_save, sender=User, dispatch_uid='get_active_user_once')
def new_user_activation_handler(sender, instance, **kwargs):
    if instance.is_active and User.objects.filter(pk=instance.pk, is_active=False).exists():
        profile = User.objects.get(pk=instance.pk).get_profile()
        RecentActivity.objects.create(content_object=profile, event_type=1, timestamp=datetime.datetime.now())

answered Jun 30 '11 at 10:39

David542

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Have you clicked the link I provided? You can do it without extra DB query. – DrTyrsa Jun 30 '11 at 21:11
1

@DrTyrsa -- the auth app link? I wasn't quite sure how to do it without an extra db query. Could you please elaborate with what you mean (a code sample would be great). Thank you. – David542 Jun 30 '11 at 21:16
@David542: Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for. IMO, this should be accepted answer. The currently accepted answer is just general advice referencing external links. – Hooman Bahreini Aug 12 '22 at 03:23

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 12 '22 at 05:27

0

If you want to do something when the field is changing, you can use the approach suggested by Josh, which is essentially to override the __init__ method.

Signals are generally used to communicate between apps. For example auth app sends user_logged_in signal. So if you want to do something when user is logging in, you just handle this signal, no need to patch the app.

edited Aug 12 '22 at 05:27

Cody Gray - on strike

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answered Jun 30 '11 at 08:27

DrTyrsa

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what if I only want to send a signal on the first user log in? – David542 Jun 30 '11 at 09:08
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@David542 You should store a flag like `signal_sent` somewhere. BTW is it possible in your application that user will become inactive again? If not - here's the flag. – DrTyrsa Jun 30 '11 at 09:10

Creating a custom signal for when a user activates his account

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