Question

I’m trying to extend a library model through multi-table inheritance and this is what I ended up with:

class CompetitionMedia(InstagramMedia):
    visible = models.BooleanField(default=True)
    most_creative = models.BooleanField(default=False)

@receiver(post_save, sender=InstagramMedia, dispatch_uid='create_competition_media')
def create_competition_media(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
    competition_media = CompetitionMedia()
    competition_media.instagrammedia = instance
    competition_media.save() # fails

@receiver(post_save, sender=InstagramMedia, dispatch_uid='create_competition_media2')
def create_competition_media2(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
    CompetitionMedia.objects.create(instagrammedia=instance) # Fails

Is it possible to do this?

Answer 1

I’m apparently supposed to set parent_ptr, like:

@receiver(post_save, sender=InstagramMedia, dispatch_uid='create_competition_media')
def create_competition_media2(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
    if created:
        CompetitionMedia.objects.create(instagrammedia_ptr=instance)

However there’s an issue where if you create and save the parent first and then try to create a child, the child will override te parent even on fields you haven’t set in the child. As described in https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/11618 and https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/7623, so I would avoid it just because it’s not very obvious that would happen.

If someone really wants to go down that route you’d need to do:

@receiver(post_save, sender=InstagramMedia, dispatch_uid='create_competition_media')
def create_competition_media2(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
    if created:
        CompetitionMedia.objects.create(instagrammedia_ptr=instance)
        instance.save() # This should re-save the parent values.

better yet:

@receiver(post_save, sender=InstagramMedia, dispatch_uid='create_competition_media')
def create_competition_media2(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
    if created:
        CompetitionMedia.objects.create(instagrammedia_ptr=instance,
            **instance.__dict__)