Django custom managers - how do I return only objects created by the logged-in user?

Question

I want to overwrite the custom objects model manager to only return objects a specific user created. Admin users should still return all objects using the objects model manager.

Now I have found an approach that could work. They propose to create your own middleware looking like this:

#### myproject/middleware/threadlocals.py  try:     from threading import local except ImportError:     # Python 2.3 compatibility     from django.utils._threading_local import local  _thread_locals = local()  def get_current_user():     return getattr(_thread_locals, 'user', None)  class ThreadLocals(object):     """Middleware that gets various objects from the     request object and saves them in thread local storage."""     def process_request(self, request):         _thread_locals.user = getattr(request, 'user', None)  #### end 

And in the Custom manager you could call the get_current_user() method to return only objects a specific user created.

class UserContactManager(models.Manager):     def get_query_set(self):         return super(UserContactManager, self).get_query_set().filter(creator=get_current_user()) 

Is this a good approach to this use-case? Will this work? Or is this like "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut" ? ;-)

Just using:

Contact.objects.filter(created_by= user) 

in each view doesn`t look very neat to me.

EDIT Do not use this middleware approach !!!

use the approach stated by Jack M. below

After a while of testing this approach behaved pretty strange and with this approach you mix up a global-state with a current request.

Use the approach presented below. It is really easy and no need to hack around with the middleware.

create a custom manager in your model with a function that expects the current user or any other user as an input.

#in your models.py class HourRecordManager(models.Manager):     def for_user(self, user):         return self.get_query_set().filter(created_by=user)  class HourRecord(models.Model):     #Managers     objects = HourRecordManager()  #in vour view you can call the manager like this and get returned only the objects from the currently logged-in user.  hr_set = HourRecord.objects.for_user(request.user) 

See also this discussion about the middelware approach.

Answer 1

One way to handle this would be to create a new method instead of redefining get_query_set. Something along the lines of:

class UserContactManager(models.Manager):     def for_user(self, user):         return super(UserContactManager, self).get_query_set().filter(creator=user)  class UserContact(models.Model):     [...]     objects = UserContactManager() 

This allows your view to look like this:

contacts = Contact.objects.for_user(request.user) 

This should help keep your view simple, and because you would be using Django's built in features, it isn't likely to break in the future.