Question

I would like to create a model method that will take the “user” (which is a CharField) for
a given review and then return the “quote” associated with that user that is defined as part
of UserProfile. I am trying to create both the method as well as the template. The things I’ve tried so far haven’t seemed to work.

I know the best way to do this is probably make the “user” field within
Reviewbackup a ForeignKey to user, but I’d like to know how to be able to do it with a
method so I can learn.

models.py

class Reviewbackup(models.Model):
    review = models.CharField('Review', max_length = 2000)
    user = models.CharField('Username', max_length =  200)
    rating = models.IntegerField(max_length=2, choices=RATING_OPTIONS)
    product = models.ForeignKey(Productbackup)
    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.review

class UserProfile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)
    quote = models.CharField('About', max_length =  200, null=True, blank=True)
    website = models.URLField('Personal website/blog', null=True, blank=True)
    facebook = models.URLField('Facebook profile page', max_length = 200, null=True, blank=True)
    twitter = models.URLField('Twitter profile page', max_length = 200, null=True, blank=True)
    youtube = models.URLField('YouTube channel page', max_length = 200, null=True, blank=True)

views.py

def view_reviews(request, product_name):
    product = get_object_or_404(Productbackup, url_friendly=product_name)
    product_id = product.id
    #get reviews for the this product
    reviews = Reviewbackup.objects.filter(product_id=product_id).order_by("-created_on")
    return render_to_response('reserve/templates/view_reviews.html', {'reviews':reviews},
        context_instance=RequestContext(request))

template

{% for review in reviews %} 
{{review.user}}
<br>{{review.user.userprofile.quote}}
{% endfor %}

Answer 1

If condition of the problem says “not to use a ForeignKey for user, but use CharField for username” you may add the method to your Reviewbackup model like:

def get_user_quote(self):
    return UserProfile.objects.get(user__username=self.user).quote

and use it in the template:

{{ review.get_user_quote }}

But you really should replace your user field to ForeignKey