Django bulk update with string replace

Question

I am trying to update and modify a string field Django's ORM. The equivalent SQL to do this is:

UPDATE example_table SET string_field = REPLACE(string_field, 'old text', 'new text'); 

With that query, I expect old text and old text more text to be replaced with new text and new text more text respectively, for all the entries in the string_field column.

Bulk update() seems promising, but doesn't allow me to modify only part of the field, and F() expressions only implement numeric changes, not string replace. I also looked at using raw queries to run the above SQL, but that seems like a sideways hack (especially since F() exists to do the same functionality on numbers), and I couldn't get them to actually execute.

I ended up with this, but it seems a shame to execute all the extra queries when I know there's a one line SQL statement to do it.

for entry in ExampleModel.objects.all():     entry.string_field = entry.string_field.replace('old text', 'new text', 1)     entry.save() 

Does this feature not exist in Django's ORM for strings yet? Is there something I overlooked in the docs?

Related SO questions:

• generate update query using django orm
• SQL statement to remove part of a string

Answer 1

Tested with django 1.9

from django.db.models import F, Func, Value  ExampleModel.objects.filter(<condition>).update(     string_field=Func(         F('string_field'),         Value('old text'), Value('new text'),         function='replace',     ) ) 

UPDATE Django 2.1 https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/models/database-functions/#replace

from django.db.models import Value from django.db.models.functions import Replace  ExampleModel.objects.filter(<condition>).update(     string_field=Replace('string_field', Value('old text'), Value('new text')) )