Question

I’m using Django 1.4 with Python 2.7 on Ubuntu 12.04.

Edit: I’m clearing some of the erroneous portions of this question out as it appears the same problem has re-occurred. It was working wonderfully – I made no changes – and now it’s failing. What’s up with that?

This is basically what the views look like:

@login_required
def request_new_project(request):
    """
    ..  function:: request_new_project()

        Collect information to call the form used to create a new project

        :param request: Django Request object
    """
    user_dict = { 'rsb_username'  : request.user.username}
    form = CreateProject(initial = user_dict)
    data = { 'user' : request.user }
    data.update(csrf(request))
    data.update({ 'form' : form })

    return render_to_response("create_project.html", data)

@login_required
def add_project(request):
    """
    ..  function:: add_project()

        Add a project for the user

        :param request: Django Request object
    """

    if (request.method == "POST"):
        user = User.objects.get(username = request.POST.get('rsb_username'))
        userProfile = UserProfile.objects.get(user = user)

        new_project = Projects(client = userProfile,
                               project_name = request.POST.get('rsb_project_name'),
                               description = request.POST.get('rsb_description'),
                               budget = request.POST.get('rsb_budget'),
                               time_frame = request.POST.get('rsb_time_frame'),
                               time_frame_units = request.POST.get('rsb_time_frame_units'),
                               contact = request.POST.get('rsb_point_of_contact'),
                               contact_email = request.POST.get('rsb_contact_email'),
                               contact_phone = request.POST.get('rsb_contact_phone'),
                               price_quote = 0,
                               eta = 'To Be Determined',
                               current_status = 'Waiting for quote',
                               )
        new_project.save()
        return view_projects(request)

I get the following error:

Cannot assign "<UserProfile: UserProfile object>": "Projects.client" must be a "User" instance.

I didn’t change the models.

# Create a table for users
class UserProfile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User)

    # Client Info
    company_name = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    client_type = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    address1 = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    address2 = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    city = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    state = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    country = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    zip_code = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    phone_number = models.CharField(max_length = 200)

# Create a table to manage project requests
class Projects(models.Model):
    client = models.ForeignKey(User)
    project_name = models.CharField(max_length = 50)
    description = models.TextField()
    budget = models.CharField(max_length = 50)
    time_frame = models.DecimalField(max_digits = 3, decimal_places = 1)
    time_frame_units = models.CharField(max_length = 25)
    contact = models.CharField(max_length = 50)
    contact_email = models.EmailField()
    contact_phone = models.CharField(max_length = 25)
    price_quote = models.DecimalField(max_digits = 10, decimal_places = 2)
    eta = models.CharField(max_length = 200)
    current_status = models.CharField(max_length = 200)

Any suggestions?

UPDATE 1:
From the actual database I can see that one of the rsb_projects constraints is:
rsb_projects_client_id_fkey (client_id) REFERENCE rsb_userprofile (id) MATCH SIMPLE ON UPDATE NO ACTION ON DELETE NO ACTION DEFERRABLE INITIALLY DEFERRED

If that helps…

It seems to me that even though I’ve defined the ForeignKey in the models.py to be against User the database wants the UserProfile id.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

The error is exactly what it says it is.

In order to create the new project you need to give your project object a user profile object, not a user profile id.

   user = User.objects.get(id=7)
   userprofile = user.get_profile()
   project.client = userprofile

Notice that it is userprofile object that is assigned to the project instance’s client attribute. You cannot assign the userprofile object’s id to the project instance’s client attribute.

Also, do not confuse your user id with your userprofile id. They may not be exactly the same.

The user id is the primary key auto-generated in the auth_user table whenever a new user is created in your database.
The userprofile id is the primary key auto-generated in the profiles_userprofile table whenever a corresponding user profile is created that is related to a user.

In other words, your add_project view function needs to read something like

if (request.method == "POST"):
    user = User.objects.get(username = request.POST.get('rsb_username'))
    # userprofile = UserProfile.objects.get(user = user)  <-- we don't need this anymore.

    new_project = Projects(client = user,  # <--- give it a user instance of course now that your model has changed
                           project_name = request.POST.get('rsb_project_name'),
                           description = request.POST.get('rsb_description'),
                           budget = request.POST.get('rsb_budget'),
                           time_frame = request.POST.get('rsb_time_frame'),
                           time_frame_units = request.POST.get('rsb_time_frame_units'),
                           contact = request.POST.get('rsb_point_of_contact'),
                           contact_email = request.POST.get('rsb_contact_email'),
                           contact_phone = request.POST.get('rsb_contact_phone'),
                           )
    new_project.save()

The key takeaway is that you need to be sure what your original model definition is.

If in your Project class, your client attribute is assigned as FK to User, then you need to give it a user object.

If in your Project class, your client attribute is assigned as FK to UserProfile, then you need to give it a userprofile object.