Question

I have a model (UserProfile) with which I want to record a user’s IP address when new user accounts are created.

I’ve begin the process of overriding the Django model’s save() method, but I am totally uncertain how to properly access HttpRequest attributes from within a model. Can any of you guys help? Google was unable to provide a specific answer for me.

Answer 1

You always need to pass on request information from the view to your save-method.
Consider that saving an instance doesn’t always have to be invoked from a http request (for a simple example think of calling save in the python shell).

If you need to access the request object within the admin while saving, you can override it’s save_model method:

def save_model(self, request, obj, form, change):
    # do something with obj and request here....
    obj.save()

But otherwise you always have to pass it on from the view:

def my_view(request):
    obj = MyClass(ip_address = request.META['REMOTE_ADDR'])

Or to make this easier to re-use, make a method on the model like:

def foo(self, request):
    self.ip_address = request.META['REMOTE_ADDR']
    self..... = request.....

and call it from your view with obj.foo(request).