Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous features provided by django-pgfields that are not actually PostgreSQL-related fields.

Improved Repr

New in version 1.0.

django-pgfields adds an optional, opt-in improved __repr__ method on the base Model class.

The default __repr__ implementation on the Model class simply identifies the model class to which the instance belongs, and does nothing else:

>>> mymodel = MyModel.objects.create(spam='eggs', foo='bar')
>>> mymodel
<MyModel: MyModel object>

The improved __repr__ implementation that django-pgfields provides iterates over the fields on the model and prints out a readable structure:

>>> mymodel = MyModel.objects.create(spam='eggs', foo='bar')
>>> mymodel
<MyModel: { 'id': 1, 'spam': 'eggs', 'foo': 'bar' }>

This is more useful for debugging, logging, and working on the shell.

Settings

django-pgfields exposes this functionality through optional settings in your Django project.

DJANGOPG_IMPROVED_REPR

• default: False

Set this to True to enable the improved repr. Because providing an alternate __repr__ implementaiton is not the core function of django-pgfields, it is offered on an opt-in basis.

DJANGOPG_REPR_TEMPLATE

• default: 'single_line'

django-pgfields offers two built-in templates for printing model objects: a single-line template and a multi-line template. They are the same, except the model-line template adds line breaks and indentation for increased readability. However, this readability may come at the expense of ease of parsing logs.

• Set this to 'single_line' for the single-line template (default).
• Set this to 'multi_line' for the multi-line template.

The single-line template produces output like this:

>>> mymodel = MyModel.objects.create(spam='eggs', foo='bar')
>>> mymodel
<MyModel: { 'id': 1, 'spam': 'eggs', 'foo': 'bar' }>

The multi-line template produces output like this:

>>> mymodel = MyModel.objects.create(spam='eggs', foo='bar')
>>> mymodel
<MyModel: {
    'id': 1,
    'spam': 'eggs',
    'foo': 'bar'
}>

Additionally, you may define your own template by providing a two-tuple to this setting. Each tuple should be a string. The first string is the overall template, and the second string is the glue on which the individual fields are joined.

The template is populated using the % operator, and it is passed a dictionary with four elements:

• class_name: The name of the model class
• members: The model’s members, joined on the join glue
• tab: The appropriate tab depth
• untab: The appropriate tab depth for a depth one above; useful for closing off a structure

The glue is sent only the tab variable.