Question

Given the simplified example below, how would I access my custom “current_status” property within a queryset? Is it even possible?

At the moment, I want to list the all the current Events and show the current status. I can get the property to display in a template ok, but I can’t order the queryset by it. Alternatively, would I need to create a custom manager with some kind of nested “if” statement in the ‘Select’?

class Event(models.Model):
    ....

    date_registered = models.DateField(null=True, blank=True)
    date_accepted = models.DateField(null=True, blank=True)
    date_reported = models.DateField(null=True, blank=True)
    ...

    def _get_current_status(self):
        ...
        if self.date_reported:
            return "Reported"
        if self.date_accepted:
            return "Accepted"
        if self.date_registered:
            return "Registered"
        if self.date_drafted:
            return "Drafted"

    current_status = property(_get_current_status)

Answer 1

Instead of calculating the status as a property, create a proper model field for it and update it in the save method. Then you can use that field directly in the query.