Question

I would like to display the function name in search fields in Django Admin interface but when i do it

The models.py:

class Adult(models.Model):    
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)
    firstname = models.CharField(max_length=100,
                                blank=True)
    lastname = models.CharField(max_length=100,
                                blank=True)
    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.user.username
    def Parent_Name(self):
      try:
        return '%s %s' % (adult.firstname,adult.lastname)
      except Exception:
        return ''
    getParentName.shot_description = 'adult'

Admin.py:

class AdultAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('Parent_Name', 'Student_Name',)
    search_fields = ['Parent_Name',]

admin.site.register(Adult, AdultAdmin)

Error:
Cannot resolve keyword ‘Parent_Name’ into field.

What should be the correct way of writing this so that the function name can be used for search_fields?

Answer 1

The search_fields should be:

… set to a list of field names that will be searched whenever somebody submits a search query in that text box.

You can’t specify your own search function, as it only accepts a list of strings indicating the fields you want to search (unlike the list_display option that you have mentioned which does accept functions – allowing you to programmatically return the value of the list item).

You can see the appropriate code that deals with search_fields here (and it’s limitations) on github. The best you can do is follow relationships.