django multiple many to many fields with same relationship on model

Question

Can the same many to many relationship exist on a model multiple times (with different field names for the field)? I can't seem to get this to work when doing the migration as python complains about the relationship already existing when I try to duplicate it to a different name.

My model currently looks like this:

class UserLocations(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    locations = models.ManyToManyField(Locations, related_name="users")

I want to add an additional field called emails that is the same as the locations field. So would I just give it a different related name?

Answer 1

Yes you can have multiple manytomany relations with the same model. You have to have different related_name for both for reverse access. Like this

class MyModel(models.Model):
    relation_a = models.ManyToManyField(AnotherModel, related_name='rev_relation_a')
    relation_b = models.ManyToManyField(AnotherModel, related_name='rev_relation_b')

That's why django is complaining because you have to define explicitly separate related names for both.