Question

I’m using Django 1.3, and would like to get an array of objects using a ‘group by’ kind of query. Here’s some simplified code:

class Product(models.Model):
    id       = models.IntegerField(primary_key=True)
    active   = models.BooleanField()
    name     = models.CharField(blank=True, max_length=500)
    slug     = models.SlugField(blank=True, max_length=500)
    program  = models.CharField(blank=True, max_length=500)
    number   = models.CharField(blank=True, max_length=500)
    image    = ...
    url      = ...

in shell:

>>> p = Product.objects.all().some_group_functions('slug')
>>> p
[<Product: Abelly Hat>, <Product: Abelt Bracelet>, <Product: Abigail Earrings>, <Product: Abigail Earrings>'...(remaining elements truncated)...']

how to get only the objects with unique slug in my variable p?

Is there any way to get the Product objects as a list?

EDIT: possible workaround
Although it does what i want it to do, please let me know if you have any better solutions:

in my view, the logic gets an object QuerySet:

products   = Product.objects.filter(*whatever filter you like*)
products   = remove_duplicates(products, 'slug')

And the remove_duplicates function

def remove_duplicates(seq, attr=None):
    seen   = {}
    result = []
    for item in seq:
       if attr:
           tmpattr = getattr(item, attr)
       else:
           tmpattr = item

       if tmpattr in seen: continue
       seen[tmpattr] = 1
       result.append(item)
return result

Answer 1

Since nobody answered anymore, I guess there’s no other simpler way than upgrading to django 1.4, which supports the functions distinct([fields]); django 1.3 only supports function distinct(), without parameters.

I tried upgrading, however django-cms untill today doesn’t support django 1.4. I’ll have to stick with the remove-duplicates function explained here 🙁